High number of respiratory diseases: Many children's hospitals at the limit - "Values ​​are going up vertically"

Created: 11/25/2022, 8:37 am

By: Patrick Huljina

According to the RKI, the number of acute respiratory diseases is currently increasing significantly.

The situation is getting worse, especially in children's hospitals.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), there is currently no increase in the number of corona infections in Germany.

According to data from the online survey "GrippeWeb", the number of acute respiratory diseases in general has increased significantly compared to the previous week, as stated in the RKI weekly report on Thursday evening (November 24th).

In the week to November 20, it was around seven million, even above the range of pre-pandemic years.

RKI weekly report: Number of acute respiratory diseases is increasing

In the coming weeks, an increasing number of respiratory diseases is to be expected due to seasonal factors.

"In particular, the positive rate and the number of illnesses caused by influenza show a clearly increasing trend, and RSV infections, especially in small children, are increasingly leading to illnesses and hospital admissions," writes the RKI in its report.

This is also reflected in the recording of severe acute respiratory infections (sarees) in patients newly admitted to the hospital: Due to the unusually strong circulation of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), there are currently significantly more cases of sarees in children up to the age of four than in children Years before the corona pandemic and in the previous year, the RKI further announced.

The sari values ​​are also at a very high level in the following age groups up to 14 years.

Many children's hospitals at the limit: intensive care and emergency medicine sees "disaster conditions"

Florian Hoffmann told the German Press Agency on the current development in small children: "It's no longer a curve, but the values ​​go up vertically." The pediatric intensive care and emergency physician is Secretary General of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi ) and senior physician in the Dr.

from Hauner Children's Hospital in Munich.

In several federal states, including Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, there is already hardly a free cot in clinics, explained Hoffmann.

He spoke of “disaster conditions”: families with sick children sometimes had to sleep on a bunk in the emergency room.

That is a sign of poverty for Germany.

Many affected children are seriously ill and need to be ventilated.

Many children's hospitals are currently at their limit due to the high number of patients.

(Iconic image) © Sebastian Gollnow/dpa

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) 

You can get RSV at any age, but the pathogen is particularly important in infants and small children.

It can be a simple respiratory infection, but severe courses up to death are also possible.

The RKI counts, for example, premature babies and children with previous lung diseases as high-risk patients, but also people with immunodeficiency or suppressed immune systems in general.

According to the RKI, 50 to 70 percent would normally have had at least one infection with RSV within the first year of life, and by the end of the second year almost all children would have experienced at least one infection.

In the course of the corona protection measures, however, many such infections were temporarily absent.

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There had already been an unusually high RSV wave in late summer 2021 - but the situation is currently worse, said Hoffmann.

Not only in Germany, in the northern hemisphere there is generally a “dramatic epidemic event”.

Hoffmann explained that many children aged one or two years are affected, who – also in view of the corona pandemic and the measures taken against it – have had no contact with the RSV.

Regarding the situation in children's intensive care, the Divi wants to present new figures and associated demands and proposed solutions to improve the care of seriously ill children next week in Hamburg.

“We won't be able to take care of everyone this winter.

Colleagues all over the country don't know what to do with our little patients," said Hoffmann.

Structures to deal with the situation are not in place and the existing registers for the bed situation are often not up to date due to a lack of time.

"We should now actually activate emergency mechanisms, for example call in nursing staff from adult medicine."