Colds and consequently mucus and cough are very frequent in the lives of young children, who suffer during the first years of life until their immune systems mature and are better able to fend off infections.
We already said it not long ago, boogers are our friends, and partly because of that children are called (ba) "brats", because it is normal for children to go often with the hanging mucus. However, What are the respiratory viruses that most affect our children? What are their names? Is there one with more bad milk (that the cold ends in something more serious) than another?
What are those viruses?
A recent study, published this month in the magazine Pediatrics, has achieved analyze the viruses of 434 children up to 5 years of age To learn a little about the viruses that cause colds, how often they appear and the percentage of infections that are complicated. The initial objective of the study, in fact, was to know the prevalence of human rhinovirus (HRV), as it is known to be the most common, and to know more about the rest of the virus.
To get to know the virus that affects each child, it was enough to perform a nasopharyngeal aspirate, that is, take a sample of the mucus, basically, to analyze them and know the cause of colds.
The researchers saw that the human rhinovirus was present in 181 samples (47.7%). In 107 he was the only agent causing the cold and in the remaining 74 he was part of a multiple infection, mostly accompanied (43.2%) by the respiratory syncytial virus (VRS) In total they saw 9 different viruses, but outside the HRV and RSV the rest were less frequent.
Of the 107 children who had only HRV, 28.9% (31 children) had moderate to severe symptoms, such as wheezing, severe cough and respiratory distress. When the infection was due to more viruses, the symptoms were moderate to severe in 51.3% of the cases (38 of the 74 children).
They also saw that in infections with multiple viruses there were more bronchial and pulmonary respiratory infections, with more hospital admissions. When RSV was among the viruses, the probability that the case would end in severe disease was greater.
They also saw that the children who had been premature, They had cardiomyopathies Y non-infectious respiratory diseases at baseline, like asthma, they were also more likely to have colds in worse.
Thus they concluded that the rhinovirus virus, which was only believed to be capable of producing mild colds, may also result in more severe respiratory infections and that the respiratory syncytial virus It has very bad milk, well It is the main culprit of many of the pneumonia and bronchitis of children.
What can we do before them?
As you know once you have a virus you just have to wait for it to go where it has come from. Come on, there is not much we can do for our son to heal beyond treating the symptoms so that, in the meantime, he is at his best.
What we can do is try to prevent. People with colds should avoid approaching babies and children, and especially those who have a respiratory or heart disease or are born prematurely. Handwashing is also essential before catching a baby or child, even if we are not cold, since through the hands we can carry other people's virus, acting as vehicles.
What is the use of knowing viruses?
Well, it doesn't help much in practice, because after all no treatment neither for the HRV nor for the RSV, but at least we know them and so we will know what our neighbor is talking about when she explains to us how bad her little boy was, admitted, when he took the respiratory syncytial virus, which it is said every child will have suffered at least once when he is two years old. General culturilla, they call it.
