Watch above: serious respiratory illness concerns Saskatchewan health officials
SASKATOON – A potential health crisis that has sickened dozens of children in the United States may be here in Canada.
Hospitals in Alberta and Ontario are now seeing surges of children with respiratory issues, with tests now underway to see if the virus known as enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) is to blame.
This after 11 children, one as young as three-months-old, were admitted to Windsor Regional Hospital in Ontario since Saturday with a respiratory illness.
Read more: Is enterovirus D68 on Canadian health officials’ radar?
“We’re not used to seeing this number especially clustered basically over two days so our concern is that some of them have had some pretty severe symptoms,” said Erika Vitale with the Windsor Regional Hospital.
In Alberta, lab results over the weekend confirmed 18 cases of a D68 strain in the nearby province.
“We don’t know that it’s the strain that was causing trouble in the U.S. so far it’s just behaving like another respiratory illness causing more kids to show up with a worsening in their asthma,” explained Dr. James Talbot, chief medical health officer for Alberta.
In the United States, there have been 104 cases of respiratory illness caused by enterovirus D68 spanning over 10 states.
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Read more: Serious respiratory illness hits hundreds of U.S. kids
Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer says there’s no cause for concern here.
“So far this year we have not seen an unusual increase, last year we saw five isolates of D68. This year we’ve just seen one over August so nothing unusual from our side,” said Dr. Saqib Shahab.
“But obviously we’ve been monitoring this as well as we’ll be monitoring hospitalizations but so far it seems like another routine start of the school year.”
Watch below: what is enterovirus?
For most children, what would be just another cold, for others it has meant hospitalization.
“We see that even in normal cold seasons when we don’t have enterovirus D68, some children do require a day or two in hospital because they’re asthma may get worse or they may get congested to a point where they need some additional in-hospital care,” explained Shahab.
Health officials say if your child is sick, keep them home and teach good hygiene.
“Trying as much as you can to teach children to wash their hands before and after eating, after using the washroom and to not keep touching their eyes and mouth all the time but it’s easier said than done with small children,” added Shahab.
Health officials also urge the public to get a flu shot when they are offered this fall.
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