A week ago Brittnay Beddoes had never heard of RSV, but now she knows too well how terrifying it can be.
The doctor says one-year-old Meah has textbook RSV. Photo: Supplied / Brittnay Beddoes
The highly contagious respiratory illness, RSV, is causing havoc up and down the country in hospital wards and in child care centres.
Hospitals in the South Island are also being affected as RSV and other winter illnesses put pressure on services.
When Christchurch's Brittnay Beddoes took her one-year-old daughter Meah to the doctor on Monday he told her it was textbook RSV.
By Tuesday, Meah had gone downhill further.
"She had had a 27-minute long febrile convulsion which was unable to be stopped by seizure medication," Beddoes said.
"She was discharged that night from Christchurch hospital because they needed the beds. And we were brought back in by ambulance last night with her temperature being 41.7 degrees and her oxygen levels were over 70. So she's been on oxygen all night."
Meah is one of several children in the South Island suffering from RSV which is a contagious respiratory illness. Photo: Supplied / Brittnay Beddoes
Today Meah started to perk up, and Beddoes is hopeful they will be back home tonight.
She also has a newborn, and she is now worried that the baby is now also getting sick.
Beddoes said the whole children's ward was full of coughing, crying babies with RSV from what she heard from other parents.
At the New Beginnings Preschool in Linwood in Christchurch, only four of the 36 children usually in attendance are there today.
The centre's curriculum lead teacher Stef Knight said in 10 years of teaching she had never seen so much sickness.
"We've got no one in our under twos room with a lot of parents bringing in children with really nasty coughs, really high fevers. Really runny, snotty, green, you know, noses so lots of those cold, flu symptoms."
Knight said they could not be sure that it was RSV causing the widespread illness, but they had a couple of parents who had it confirmed by their doctors that their child did have RSV.
She wants the DHB to provide information about what they should do next.
"Be really nice to know, if it is this RSV that's taking hold, like is there a specific stand down period that we should be having for families ... once the fevers have settled but the child still got a cough. Are they still contagious? Like there's all these things that we don't really know how best to deal with it how best to inform parents.
"How do we keep ourselves safe? And obviously, we don't want to keep seeing days where instead of 36 children, we've got four."
RSV is a seasonal virus that frequently circulates through the community during winter, and although it can be mild for those who have had it before it can be very severe for young babies, the elderly and those with a weak immune system.
DHB issues call for 'extreme care'
In a statement released this evening, The Southern District Health Board is calling on the public to exercise "extreme care" when visiting its Children's Wards, Neonatal and Neonatal Intensive Care and Critical Care Units.
The DHB wanted to do all it could to reduce transmission of RSV and other respiratory illnesses to vulnerable patients.
Paediatricians Professor Barry Taylor and Dr Ian Shaw said Dunedin and Southland Hospitals were emphasising whānau with any symptoms (runny nose or cough) should not visit children in the Children's Wards or patients in the Intensive Care and Critical Care Units.
Clinical directors for Southern DHB Emergency Departments said they were seeing a significant up-surge of patients from all age groups, particularly children, with likely viral respiratory infections compared to this time last year.
They said the Children's Ward at Southland Hospital had been full this week, as the wave of respiratory illnesses in the North Island starts to make its way South. The Dunedin Children's ward currently has spare capacity, but many children are being actively supported in the community.
In Dunedin Hospital, the Children's Unit has been seeing an increase in children with breathing difficulties but is still within capacity. In Southland, 9/10 patients in isolation on the Children's Ward are for respiratory illness.
"The increase in the number of children getting respiratory infections is usually seen every winter, with some further increase this year because very few children were exposed to respiratory viruses during the Covid-19 lockdown last winter," Professor Taylor said.
"This tells us that the measures taken during lock-down were very effective at stopping these viruses from spreading and that where whānau members have symptoms, they can take similar measures to stop spreading their virus to other people."
Medical Officer of Health, Dr Susan Jack, this evening urged that sick children who had a cold or cough be kept warm and at home and to seek medical attention if they got worse.
Situation likely to get worse
The Canterbury District Health Board has had 41 confirmed cases of RSV since last Thursday, and has had more than 100 more children brought to the emergency department with respiratory infections this year than 2019 - although it could confirm if all had RSV as not all were tested for it.
Four planned surgeries were deferred on Tuesday due to an increase of paediatric patients, but the board said though it was stretched it was able to meet demand.
The country is unlikely to have seen the worst of the impact of RSV with a virologist Dr Sue Huang saying the coming weeks would be critical to see how much impact RSV had.
"The next month will be critical. And in July and usually RSV, actually peaks later. Often flu comes up first and then RSV, and this year we have no flu, and RSV, usually around August or September," Dr Huang said.
Huang said early symptoms were very like a cold or flu with a fever or cough, and people who had previously encountered RSV could present with very mild symptoms.
Beddoes advises other parents to visit a doctor soon as their child shows signs of struggling to breathe.