Keeping children safe during cold & flu season | Dallas News Live

So what should parents keep in mind as we do head into this time of year when so many people seem to get sick? We are joined now by Dr. Jeffrey Kahn. He is the chief of infectious diseases at Children's Health as well as a professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Doctor, thank you for your time. I think a lot of people know that elderly are big populations that are at risk when it comes to the flu. But I don't know that a lot of people think of children as being vulnerable. What are the risks do kids face The kids face with getting seriously sick. Well, as this tragic case reminds us, this death in a patient reminds us that flu is a deadly disease, can be a deadly disease in children. If you look historically through a typical flu season, there are about 150 to 250 deaths in children per year and a lot more hospitalizations due to influenza. So influenza can cause very severe disease in children, both children who have underlying risk factors and children who are otherwise healthy. So tell me, what are some of the warning signs that parents need to keep their eyes out for? And I think the biggest question most parents probably watching want to know, when is it time to go to the emergency room? So the typical course of influenza, and this is true for children and adults, is a sudden onset of fevers, aches, chills, pains, cough, headache, or throat. Thank you. And in children, one of the features would be that they're having difficulty breathing, certainly when that comes into play to your health care provider. Another thing, particularly for young children and infants, is they get dehydrated very quickly because they're sick. Um, if you're noticing if your baby's not producing a lot of wet diapers, that's another indication to bring the child to medical attention. I think that's probably the biggest sort of conundrum with parents is do we let this ride itself out? When do we need to give medication? When do you call the pediatrician? So fortunately, we have some very good antivirals, some medicine that treat influenza and can prevent severe disease. And we know that these medications are much more effective if they're given early during infection. So if you think you've caught the flu, and there's a lot of flu circulating right now, call your pediatrician or your health provider. They could prescribe these medications to your children that will not only decrease the likelihood of severe infection, but also decrease the duration of illness. When is it good to have an antiviral on standby? I know that there's clearly a shelf life when it comes to medications, but might this be something that you could get to have on standby so you can give at the sign of trouble or you want to get it after speaking to a doctor? Well, you certainly should speak with your doctor about that. That is probably a very good strategy, particularly if you have somebody, have a child who has underlying medical problems that make them particularly susceptible to severe influenza infection. So having that antiviral at home ready if your child gets sick certainly helps out, particularly if your child gets sick late on a Saturday night or over a holiday weekend. To have that in hand so you can use it immediately if you believe your child has influenza. And that it might save you a trip to an emergency room because we know we don't want to clog ERs if it's not a true emergency. Let's talk about North Texas specifically. What can you tell us about how severe this season is looking so far? And is this earlier than usual? It still is earlier than usual. Now, of course, we're not going to know what the peak of activity is until we've passed it. But if you look at a typical influenza season in North Texas, it actually peaks late December and January. So what the data is telling us right now, it's either we're going to have an early or a very long influenza season. So there's a lot of flu circulating right now. The numbers that we're seeing at Children's. Are much higher than the number that's at the health department simply because we have more up-to-date data. The health department takes a little time to crunch their data. And we're seeing a lot more activity in Texas than we are, than there is throughout most of the United States. So it looks like we're having early activity of flu, a lot of activity of flu right now in mid November. Hopefully, that will peak soon and start to decline, but it also may mean that we're in for a long influenza season. No, no, that might not be a good thing. I'm curious with the holidays, Thanksgiving, I mean, it's just around the corner. What advice do you have for a family deciding whether a child who is maybe just getting over the flu or kind of starting to come down with something? What advice do you give about going to gatherings with family and other members? Well, certainly if you're ill, you shouldn't be going to gatherings. And I think the other important thing to note is get your vaccine. There's still plenty of time to get the vaccine. As I mentioned a moment ago, in the typical flu season, we see the peak in late December, early January. Get the vaccine. Another thing about the vaccine, even if your child has had flu, there are typically three or four strains of flu circulating every year. And if you get the flu, you may become immune to one of those strains, but not the others. So it's important to get that full vaccination on board that will protect you and also will protect household contacts from getting the flu. If you're protected you're less likely to spread it to household contact or to family that you're visiting over the Thanksgiving holiday. Well this is all sage advice for people watching as we are heading into the peak of things as you said Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, Chief of Infectious Diseases at Children's Health, thank you for your time.