In six weeks, 23 children were admitted to a hospital in Tennessee this spring for treatment for parechovirus, a common virus that in rare cases can pose a deadly threat to infants, according to a report released this week by the Centers for Disease Control. and Prevention. .
Twenty-one of the children recovered without complications, but one was at risk for hearing loss and blood clots, the CDC said, while another child suffered persistent seizures and was expected to suffer from severe developmental delay.
The children admitted to Nashville Hospital – Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University – were between 5 days and 3 months old, and their disease was discovered from April 12 to May 24, the CDC said. The report described the infections as an “unusually large cluster”. Six more cases have been identified in the hospital at other times this year, a “peak in infections” compared to years past, the report said.
Thirteen of the patients were girls and 10 were boys, and all were previously healthy, the CDC said.
Not long after this cluster, the CDC warned doctors this month that the type of parechovirus most associated with serious illness has been circulating nationwide since May. It suggested parechovirus as a diagnosis to consider for babies with unexplained fevers or seizures.
Parechovirus is so common that most children are infected with it by the time they reach preschool age, and symptoms include a runny nose and sneezing — which we normally associate with the common cold.
But babies under 3 months old, and especially those under a month old, are at greater risk of serious illness, according to the CDC.
There is no cure for parechovirus, but diagnoses can still determine how doctors treat the disease.
Experts say it’s possible the increase in cases is the result of increased socialization following a period of lockdowns in which people were not exposed to common pathogens, which may have weakened their immune systems. But it could also be that babies are simply tested more often for parechovirus.
“Our ‘eyes’ have gotten better, so we see more,” Dr. Kenneth Alexander, chief of infectious diseases at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Florida, told DailyExpertNews this month.