Children and H1N1 (swine flu)

memo_to_all

Ok...Iv studied the HSE website on the appropriate actions for swine flu...but it says that children under 5 and particularly those under 2 are a high risk group..but what does this mean?

What should I do now to prepare for my two boys? (aged 30 months and 7 weeks)

What are the potential complications?

All advice most welcome as i feel theres not enough information for parents of very young children!

tagoona

As far as I know, there is nothing you can do to prepare your children.
I would however be keeping a very close eye on the kids and their symptoms.
While I might be inclined to let a cold work itself out over the course of 2-3 weeks usually, our little one had a cold bordering on an upper chest infection recently.
I gave her the antibiotics after about a week and a half.

Had a word with a doctor this morning, and he was basically saying that any serious reaction/complication is usually a result of some sort of depressed immune system.

Just keeping them as healthy as humanly possible seems to be the way to go.
And to be the anal/over-cautious parent when it comes to a kid with cold/flu like symptoms and take them to the doctor.

Worrying times for us all.

embee

http://www.hse.ie/eng/swineflu/faq/

You should be checking the HSE's website on a day to day basis, as they can sometimes change the advice and information as they learn more about Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1).

If you are worried about symptoms, telephone your GP or Doctor On Call service. Do not attend the surgery if you are displaying symptoms.

The HSE has a flu information line also - 1800 94 11 00.

hallelujajordan

memo_to_all wrote: »

What should I do now to prepare for my two boys? (aged 30 months and 7 weeks)

Swine Flu really is a mild disease, right now it is no more virulent or widespread than regular influenza...

The advice on the websites is good. . other useful resources are the hpsc website, The WHO website and the UK's NHS pandemic flu website . .

The vast majority of people who get sick with this are recovering in a few days without treatment.

One extra piece of advice I would give you is if your 2.5 year old does get ill, do your best to isolate him from the baby. .

Kildrought

Having just nursed an (otherwise healthy and generally uncomplaining) teenager through this, I would question the 'mild symptoms' they are all on about.

It was a nasty flu, exceptionally high temps - would have been very, very concerned if a baby/toddler - vomiting, severe aches & pains etc.,

Said teenager was over it in about 4-5 days, but it certainly wasn't 'mild'.

tallaght01

Kildrought wrote: »

Having just nursed an (otherwise healthy and generally uncomplaining) teenager through this, I would question the 'mild symptoms' they are all on about.

It was a nasty flu, exceptionally high temps - would have been very, very concerned if a baby/toddler - vomiting, severe aches & pains etc.,

Said teenager was over it in about 4-5 days, but it certainly wasn't 'mild'.

Agreed. It's mild in many cases ("mild" like the normal flu). BUt we have a lot of people in intensive care here in oz, to the extent that we've had to buy extra life support machines. This thing is going to hit pretty hard in winter in Ireland, and people need to take it seriously. Panic is no use. But we need to have a healthy respect for this virus.

Nevyn

I've been making sure the kids are eating healthly and that we are getting more then the 5 a day fruit/veg and making sure that I have a good supply over over the counter cold and flu remedies for them and the adults in the house on stand by so that if we all get it we don't have to go out to the chemist.

simu

My son who is three got swabbed for swine flu yesterday because he has tonsillitis. We get the results back next week; I'll keep you all posted! He's doing fine though, just less energetic than usual - he's on antibiotics for the tonsillitis and he's got a bit of a high temperature which we're keeping down with the usual kids' medication.

nesf

simu wrote: »

My son who is three got swabbed for swine flu yesterday because he has tonsillitis. We get the results back next week; I'll keep you all posted! He's doing fine though, just less energetic than usual - he's on antibiotics for the tonsillitis and he's got a bit of a high temperature which we're keeping down with the usual kids' medication.

Well, more than that (simu is my wife) the tonsillitis is secondary to some viral infection he has. He's been running a fever of 102 for five days at this stage. He's doing well, but was swabbed as a precaution mostly because simu is pregnant with our second.

di11on

What I don't get is the following:

Hallelujahjordan wrote:

Swine Flu really is a mild disease, right now it is no more virulent or widespread than regular influenza...

If this is true, what makes it different from regular flu?

Is every annual outbreak of flu not a pandemic?

As far as I can make out, it's just regular flu with a name. "Swineflu" oooooh.... scary... but in fact, it's no more virulent or severe?

What is different about swinefu?

Jumpy

di11on wrote: »

What I don't get is the following:



If this is true, what makes it different from regular flu?

Is every annual outbreak of flu not a pandemic?

As far as I can make out, it's just regular flu with a name. "Swineflu" oooooh.... scary... but in fact, it's no more virulent or severe?

What is different about swinefu?

People do not have a resistance to this. It spreads faster as a result.

nesf

di11on wrote: »

What I don't get is the following:



If this is true, what makes it different from regular flu?

Is every annual outbreak of flu not a pandemic?

As far as I can make out, it's just regular flu with a name. "Swineflu" oooooh.... scary... but in fact, it's no more virulent or severe?

What is different about swinefu?

The other thing is the deaths have been different. The people dying from swine flu aren't those who would normally die from regular flu. It's got some odd features, like presence in the digestive tract that again the regular flu doesn't tend to have etc. The biggest issue is this, the 1918 pandemic went around the globe 3 times. The first time it was mild and similar to regular flu but the second time it had mutated into a virus with an extremely high fatality rate. Potentially swine flu could mutate into a killer bug rather than the relatively benign virus that it presently is. It's being hyped up to a stupid degree by Sky News etc but there is a possibility of it becoming something worth worrying a lot about. The only good news is that the 1918 pandemic came from a bird flu crossing over to humans rather than a swine flu and hopefully swine flus are less likely to become virii with high mortality rates but this is at best a hope rather than a scientific fact.

hallelujajordan

di11on wrote: »

What I don't get is the following:



If this is true, what makes it different from regular flu?

Is every annual outbreak of flu not a pandemic?

As far as I can make out, it's just regular flu with a name. "Swineflu" oooooh.... scary... but in fact, it's no more virulent or severe?

What is different about swinefu?

Actually it is no different to the Flu that occurs seasonally. Both diseases are caused by the Influenza A virus which can exist in many different genetic variations. In a normal year, Influenza A will occur in two seasonal epidemics during the Winters of the Northern and Southern hemisphere. It will typically be responsible for about half a million deaths per year globally usually in the very young or very old.

What we know is that every now and then (3 times during the last century) the virus will pick up a genetic mutation that will make it either more virulent (kills more people) or more infectious (spreads quicker and easier) and this 'super-strain' will spread quickly across the globe causing a higher than usual mortality rate. This is termed a pandemic (when the same genetic strain has been identified in several countries and human to human transmission has been confirmed). In previous pandemics the death rate jumped from half a million to 10's of million's. This is where we are now, although so far this very infectious virus is not causing high mortality !

What happens next is a bit of a lottery; the disease is mild at the moment . .(severe compared to the colds that most of us would be used to but mild in clinical terms and compared to what it could be). a mutation could cause an even more virulent strain that will spread with a higher death rate. However, this will be the first Influenza pandemic where we have had good global preparation, effective antivirals and antibiotics (to treat secondary bacterial infections which are often the real cause of death) and come September we should have an effective vaccine.

My guess (or maybe its a hope) is that this will have disappeared by the end of the year.

nesf

hallelujajordan wrote: »

Actually it is no different to the Flu that occurs seasonally. Both diseases are caused by the Influenza A virus which can exist in many different genetic variations.

Ish. It's a novel strain of Influenza A which makes it a lot more contagious than the regular flu which makes it potentially a lot more dangerous. Having had previous Influenza A infections won't give you any immunity to this strain.

hallelujajordan

nesf wrote: »

Ish. It's a novel strain of Influenza A which makes it a lot more contagious than the regular flu which makes it potentially a lot more dangerous. Having had previous Influenza A infections won't give you any immunity to this strain.

did you read the rest of my post ? ? ?

nesf

hallelujajordan wrote: »

did you read the rest of my post ? ? ?

Yup, the initial part of your post is the only part I'd take issue with. It's not behaving like a normal flu, it's not killing the same people that most Influenza A strains kill, it's also more contagious already.

esharknz

Here are some guidelines for babies/children - how to care for them, and when to get help:

http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/influenza-a-h1n1-care-others#children