Preemie infected with lung virus

RS virus epidemic at the premature center of a Berlin hospital

01/07/2013

According to media reports, the respiratory syncytial virus (RS virus), which can cause threatening respiratory diseases, especially in babies and toddlers, is currently rampant on the premature wards in Vivantes Klinikum Berlin. According to the daily newspaper „B.Z.“ Ten children in the hospital are infected with the RS virus. The head physician of the child and youth medicine at the Vivantes hospital Friedrichshain, Hermann Girschick, confirmed opposite the sheet the RS virus epidemic and stressed that here from one „general berlin wide problem“ to go out.

Although the RS virus is not a particular health threat to adults and healthy children, preemies are at an increased risk because their immune system is not yet fully developed. The pathogens cause a flu-like infection, with typical cold symptoms such as fever, runny nose and coughing to a middle ear infection or acute bronchitis. In order to avoid further spread of the pathogens in the Vivantes Hospital, the infected children were isolated and comprehensive hygiene measures were carried out. The pathogens, however, are extremely easy to transfer because, for example, they can survive several hours on surfaces of disposable gloves and stethoscopes. The Robert Koch Institute explains: „RSV can survive on respiratory secretions for 20 minutes on hands, 45 minutes on paper towels and cotton gowns and up to several hours on disposable gloves, on stethoscopes and on plastic surfaces.“

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), RS viruses are one of the „most important pathogens of respiratory infections in infants, especially premature babies and infants.“ Their spread in the general population has been undervalued for a long time. Today, the RKI assumes "an incidence of 48.5 cases worldwide and 5.6 severe cases per 1,000 children in the first year of life". About two percent of RSV respiratory illnesses in infants are fatal, according to the RKI. In Europe, the RS virus infections are increasingly observed from November to April. According to the RKI, RSV infections are considered to be present in older infants and toddlers „most common cause of diseases of the lower respiratory tract“ and related hospitalizations. By the end of the second year, nearly all children would have had at least one infection with RS viruses. In addition, RS viruses „one of the major causes of nosocomial infection (hospital infection) and pneumonia (pneumonia) in infants and young infants.“ (Fp)

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Picture: Gerd Altmann