St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital reports sudden uptick in patients with respiratory virus

St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital in Boise is seeing a major uptick in kids needing care for a respiratory virus called RSV.

The sudden increase in cases marks an early start to the virus’s typical season, Dr. Kenny Bramwell, system medical director for St. Luke’s Children’s, told reporters at a Thursday news conference.

“Outside of COVID years, we would see this in January of almost every year,” Bramwell said. “Interestingly, we went a year and a half without seeing a single case of RSV, because it turns out that washing your hands, wearing masks and staying home when you’re sick prevents all viruses.”

While the severity of the common illness isn’t worse than it’s been in previous years, he said, other challenges make it difficult for infants and toddlers with RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, to get care.

RSV causes a mild, cold-like illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it can also cause severe illness such as bronchiolitis (inflammation of small airways in the lungs) and pneumonia (infection of the lungs). Nearly all children get infected with RSV by age 2.

Bramwell said many hospitals in Idaho aren’t comfortable admitting children with RSV for a few days of hydration or oxygen therapy.

Only two locations in the region, St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital in Boise and St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, will admit patients with the virus. Other hospitals, including Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise and West Valley Medical Center in Caldwell, no longer do so.

There are also capacity issues facing the local hospitals that will admit children with RSV.

“We have had to send kids out of the state in the last few weeks already,” Bramwell said. “Sometimes it’s because we don’t have the physical beds for the children who need to be admitted. Sometimes we don’t have the staffing for the additional children who need to be admitted. And sometimes the complexity of their illness or their other medical problems makes it so that we need to transfer them out of state.”

There are no available vaccines to mitigate or prevent severe illness from RSV, but early results from a large international study show promising results. Pfizer announced on Tuesday that new research shows vaccinating pregnant women can help protect their newborns.

When infants get RSV, their narrow nasal passages can swell shut, making it hard to breathe and eat. RSV can also be dangerous for older adults.

“If we could get a successful vaccine that’s easy to administer, that would be fantastic,” Bramwell said.

One of the things families can do to help, he said, is to get the vaccines that are already available for other illnesses that are severe in infants and toddlers, including COVID-19 and influenza. Practicing social distancing and hand hygiene can also help.

“What I would try and share is the importance of washing your hands and staying home when you’re sick,” Bramwell said. “If you are sick and you have to go out, wear a mask to try and minimize the spread of whatever you have.”

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