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The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario is restricting visitors and putting other “outbreak measures” in place after three children acquired respiratory illnesses while they were patients there.
The move comes after the hospital last week confirmed four cases of Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), a strain of the common cold virus that is causing severe respiratory symptoms among some children across Canada and the United States.
A spokeswoman says there are no further confirmed cases of D68 at CHEO, but that the hospital is seeing an increase in visits to the emergency room for respiratory infections. CHEO currently has 25 patients admitted with respiratory illnesses. Visits to its emergency department are up by seven per cent for September compared to a year ago, and about one quarter of those visits are for respiratory infections (compared to 16 per cent at this time last year).
CHEO is restricting visitors, allowing only parents, guardians and other designated individuals on its 4 East medical unit, and asking anyone with respiratory or other symptoms to stay away. Other outbreak measures include increasing resources for cleaning rooms and equipment, closing shared areas on the unit such as the kitchen and playroom, reducing staff movement between different units and ensuring that staff members who are ill do not come to work.
Taking such measures is not uncommon during viral season. “Every year in viral season, you can expect hospitals to put measures in place in different units at different times to help prevent the spread of infection,” the hospital said in a statement. “CHEO takes infection prevention and control very seriously.”
Ottawa Public Health sent a memo to doctors, clinics, hospitals and infectious disease specialists this week advising them to remind asthmatic patients to make sure they have their medications, such as inhalers, available “and have an action plan for breathing problems.”
Children and teenagers appear to be at greater risk of infection from the EV-D68 as they may lack protection from previous exposure to the virus, the public health memo says, and children with asthma seem to be at higher risk for severe respiratory illness.
Until the end of last week, there had been 160 laboratory confirmations of EV-D68 across Canada and the United States — Canadian cases have been reported in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta.
Ottawa Public Health officials say the only patients who will be tested for the virus — which must be done at the national labs in Winnipeg — will be patients who are admitted to hospital. There is no need to test for the strain, public health officials say, in most cases, because treatment is the same as for other enteroviruses. Confirmation of the virus can take as long as two weeks, which means only cases tested in the first week of September have been confirmed.
Health officials say the spread of EV-D68 can be slowed with the same prevention measures used for the common cold: frequent hand washing; coughing or sneezing into a tissue, an arm or a sleeve; staying at home when ill; and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces, such as doorknobs and toys.
epayne@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
The move comes after the hospital last week confirmed four cases of Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), a strain of the common cold virus that is causing severe respiratory symptoms among some children across Canada and the United States.
A spokeswoman says there are no further confirmed cases of D68 at CHEO, but that the hospital is seeing an increase in visits to the emergency room for respiratory infections. CHEO currently has 25 patients admitted with respiratory illnesses. Visits to its emergency department are up by seven per cent for September compared to a year ago, and about one quarter of those visits are for respiratory infections (compared to 16 per cent at this time last year).
CHEO is restricting visitors, allowing only parents, guardians and other designated individuals on its 4 East medical unit, and asking anyone with respiratory or other symptoms to stay away. Other outbreak measures include increasing resources for cleaning rooms and equipment, closing shared areas on the unit such as the kitchen and playroom, reducing staff movement between different units and ensuring that staff members who are ill do not come to work.
Taking such measures is not uncommon during viral season. “Every year in viral season, you can expect hospitals to put measures in place in different units at different times to help prevent the spread of infection,” the hospital said in a statement. “CHEO takes infection prevention and control very seriously.”
Ottawa Public Health sent a memo to doctors, clinics, hospitals and infectious disease specialists this week advising them to remind asthmatic patients to make sure they have their medications, such as inhalers, available “and have an action plan for breathing problems.”
Children and teenagers appear to be at greater risk of infection from the EV-D68 as they may lack protection from previous exposure to the virus, the public health memo says, and children with asthma seem to be at higher risk for severe respiratory illness.
Until the end of last week, there had been 160 laboratory confirmations of EV-D68 across Canada and the United States — Canadian cases have been reported in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta.
Ottawa Public Health officials say the only patients who will be tested for the virus — which must be done at the national labs in Winnipeg — will be patients who are admitted to hospital. There is no need to test for the strain, public health officials say, in most cases, because treatment is the same as for other enteroviruses. Confirmation of the virus can take as long as two weeks, which means only cases tested in the first week of September have been confirmed.
Health officials say the spread of EV-D68 can be slowed with the same prevention measures used for the common cold: frequent hand washing; coughing or sneezing into a tissue, an arm or a sleeve; staying at home when ill; and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces, such as doorknobs and toys.
epayne@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
