“What we’re seeing is rather than having a year’s worth of children who haven’t been exposed to RSV,we’ve got 18 months’ worth of children who have never been exposed.
“So in terms of the sheer numbers of children who have no immunity to this virus,it’s larger than we would usually see over a winter.”
The virus has caused some children to become very sick and require intensive care. However,this is less common.
Anecdotally,it appeared many children were presenting with more serious symptoms than would usually be expected,McNab said.
RSV symptoms are similar to the common cold,with children presenting with a runny nose,fever and cough. Hospitals will admit those who have trouble breathing or are suffering dehydration.
Royal Melbourne Hospital has also reported a rise in RSV admissions. Five cases of RSV were recorded in the hospital’s test results in May,but that jumped to 50 cases in June and a further 50 cases in the first two weeks of July.
“It’s really climbing up this last month,” director of emergency medicine Dr Mark Putland said.“That’s a fairly steep jump from five to 50,and it’ll probably be 100 over three months.”
With the Royal Children’s specialising in paediatric cases,the Royal Melbourne mostly sees cases of RSV in elderly patients,who are also vulnerable to severe symptoms and sometimes admitted to intensive care.
The Australian College of Emergency Medicine’s Victorian acting chair Dr Belinda Hibble said emergency wards across the state were observing an extraordinary spike in paediatric admissions,with many of these children suffering from RSV and needing oxygen or breathing support or help with hydration.
Part of the reason why children were winding up in hospital was a lack of access to primary care due to general practice clinics being overloaded and difficulties getting in to see a doctor when a patient is suffering from COVID-19-like symptoms.
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“Over the last couple of months we’ve seen a disproportionate rise in children attending emergency departments with respiratory illnesses needing assessment,” Hibble said.
“There’s more circulating viruses because children are mixing so much more than they were during the last few years. And they are experiencing some challenges in accessing private primary care as we’re seeing throughout the system,particularly with infectious illnesses.”
General practitioner Simon Benson,who runs a major respiratory clinic in Footscray,in Melbourne’s west,said the clinic was starting to diagnose more viral infections,including influenza and RSV than they were COVID-19.
Of all the patients the clinic saw,including those who present with COVID-19 and test for it and other illnesses,30 per cent have COVID-19,about 39 per cent had other viruses and the rest had a bacterial infection.
“The percentage of COVID-19 that we’re seeing was quite low in the respiratory clinic,” Benson said.
“There’s a lot of respiratory virus going around,COVID-19 included.
“People can’t believe that they don’t have COVID-19 because they feel so awful with whatever they’ve got,” Benson said.
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