On Sunday night, 4-month-old Aesop Light was happy and alert. By Monday morning, he was struggling to breathe.
Aesop’s parents, Corey and Tara Light, took him to an emergency room near their home in the Chicago suburbs, but it didn’t have a children’s wing, so Aesop was rushed by ambulance to another hospital an hour away. He tested positive for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, a common virus that causes lung infections.
Aesop’s condition “went downhill really fast,” Tara said.
Hospitals across the country have reported a surge in RSV cases over the last three to four weeks. The virus began circulating in the summer, to doctors’ surprise, since it usually peaks in winter.
For many kids, RSV symptoms look like a common cold. But for others — young babies or children with lung diseases or weakened immune systems — symptoms can be more severe.
“The ones who tend to get the most sick are the infants below four months. And then the ones who are older who tend to get most sick are those who have some other medical conditions,” said Dr. Sameer Kamath, chief medical officer for Duke Children’s Hospital and Health Center.
RSV can lead to bronchiolitis, an infection that causes airways to become inflamed and clogged with mucus, making it difficult to breathe. If the infection travels to the lung sacs, it can result in pneumonia.
Hmmmm… were the pregnant moms given the jab, I wonder?