BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) With dozens of states sounding the alarm about capacity at hospitals due to a surge of respiratory illness in children, doctors in Buffalo say, they too, are seeing a significant increase in cases of RSV, or Respiratory syncytial virus.
"Our hospital is well above capacity," said Dr. Stephen Turkovich, Chief Medical Officer of Oishei Children's Hospital, on WBEN Friday.
"Yesterday (Thursday), was the busiest day at Oishei since the hospital opened in 2017 with 230 patients. The vast majority of them are being treated for RSV," he said.
Asked to compare this to the last RSV surge, Turkovich said in December of 2019, they had 181 patients admitted with RSV. So far this month, the hospital has had over 325 cases, with ten days left in the month.
"This is probably one of the worst RSV seasons I have seen," added Turkovich.
RSV affects the youngest of the young. It causes a viral pneumonia called
"Bronchiolitis" which affects very small tubes in the lungs. It fills them with mucous and causes significant difficulty breathing. Many babies require oxygen and some higher levels of support such as ventilation to help them breathe.
"It's very difficult clinically to figure out if someone has RSV, a cold, the flu, or Covid. There's actually a swab test where we can test for all three things, RSV, the flu and Covid," said Turkovich.
Symptoms that parents should watch for include fast breathing, where it looks like their child's ribs are being sucked in, or if it looks like they're tiring out by breathing so fast. Those are the most important things to be looking at. Those children may require supplemental oxygen.
One thing that may explain why we're seeing such an uptick in cases, is that many infants and young children born during the pandemic might not have had the chance to build up immunity to viruses such as RSV when public health policies kept people more socially isolated. That could be
contributing to the severe cases that doctors have been seeing this fall.
"RSV really hasn't been around during the last three years," said Turkovich. "There's not a lot of immunity within the population. That's a major factor that's been driving this. Also, the strain that is circulating this year, is a more severe strain. Both factors together have made this a very difficult year."
RSV is always talked about with children. with the virus being very transmissible, Turkovich said adults have to watch out as well. "The elderly population is also at risk. It can cause a pretty severe viral pneumonia.
Flu season has begun in Western New York. "Typically we would start to see flu admissions before the pandemic, in later November or early December. We've already had 30 children testing positive for flu. So it appears it will be hitting us earlier
Sometimes with the flu there can be two peaks. One with Flu strain A and another one a little later, with Flu strain B. Turkovich added there there is a lot that is still unknown about this flu season.
