On November 15, speaking with a reporter from Lao Dong Newspaper, a representative of Thanh Hoa Children's Hospital said that in recent weeks, the number of children hospitalized for influenza A has tended to increase. Currently, the hospital's Tropical Diseases Department is treating about 20 children with influenza and other respiratory viruses such as hand, foot and mouth disease, RSV, chickenpox.
According to a representative of Thanh Hoa Children's Hospital, many influenza A patients have been treated at home or at lower levels but the disease progressed rapidly and became severe, so they had to be transferred to the hospital with respiratory failure and pneumonia. Some cases have severe hyperinfection and have to breathe oxygen for a long time.
Mr. Luong Duc Huy - Deputy Head of the Department of Tropical Diseases, Thanh Hoa Children's Hospital - said that influenza A is an infectious disease transmitted through the respiratory tract, which can occur at any age. Usually the disease progresses easily and goes away on its own after 3 - 7 days. However, young children, the elderly or people with underlying diseases are at high risk of severe progression.
"Recently, the number of children coming for examination has increased. Only cases with severe signs such as pneumonia, respiratory failure or complications are indicated for hospitalization. Children with influenza A often have symptoms of continuous high fever, increased cough, runny nose, fatigue, and crying. Some children may vomit, diarrhea or convulsions due to high fever" - Mr. Huy said.
According to Mr. Huy, when the disease progresses severely, children may experience sluggishness, lack of reaction, stopping feeding, breastfeeding quickly, and chest tightness. These are all warning signs of dangerous complications, parents should absolutely not be subjective.
Doctor Huy recommends that parents should pay attention when their children have a high fever and do not lower it, have difficulty breathing, breathe abnormally fast or show signs of exhaustion. When children have sneezing, runny nose, fatigue or a prolonged fever, the family should take the child to a medical facility for examination, not arbitrarily use medicine - especially antibiotics - because incorrect treatment can make the disease worse.
According to a report from the infectious disease monitoring system of Thanh Hoa province, the number of influenza cases has increased sharply in recent times. The main reason is that the time of changing seasons, temperature and humidity constantly change, creating favorable conditions for the influenza virus to develop and spread.
Monitoring results show that the current strains of influenza are mainly seasonal flu such as influenza A (H1N1, H3N2) and influenza B; no highly active influenza strains transmitted from poultry to humans such as influenza A (H5N1, H5N6, H7N9) have been recorded. However, the sharp increase in cases in young children is still a worrying problem.
It is known that not only at hospitals, the spread of influenza A has also been recorded in many schools. Typically, at Ly Tu Trong Secondary School (Hac Thanh Ward), the number of students infected with influenza A increased dramatically in early November. On November 14 alone, about 50 students had to stay home from school due to the flu.
