THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 22, 1995 TAG: 9512220404
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
A wave of winter illnesses is emptying classrooms and packing physicians' offices as parents try desperately to get their kids - and themselves - well before Christmas.
``We're just overwhelmed,'' said Dr. Bobby Garrison, a Norfolk pediatrician. Garrison typically sees about 35 children a day. Monday, he saw 65. By Tuesday, he had stopped counting.
Chesapeake pediatrician Sue Lee's office was so swamped Tuesday that some parents waited 2 1/2 hours to have their wheezing, dripping children seen. ``We're as busy as a bee in a tar bucket,'' she said.
Pediatricians are treating a variety of illnesses, including colds, strep throat and what may be the first cases of influenza this year. Stomach viruses, seemingly unrelated to the season, are also bringing many children to pediatricians. Children aren't the only ones affected. Adults are also swarming into primary-care physician offices, complaining of fevers, vomiting and diarrhea, said Dr. David M. Levin, medical director for Ghent Family Practice and Eastern Virginia Medical School's Health Services at Witchduck.
``There's a really nasty bug going around right now,'' he said.
Audrey Hunt of Virginia Beach took her 6-year-old daughter Elizabeth to the doctor Wednesday. The girl had spent the past three days with a high fever, throwing up. The verdict: ``Just a virus,'' Hunt said. ``Nothing they could do about it.''
Garrison said he'd seen about a dozen children earlier this week with high fevers, achiness, hacking coughs and runny noses - classic flu symptoms.
The state Health Department reports ``scattered'' cases of flu throughout the state, most in the northwest section of Virginia, but no confirmed cases in Hampton Roads.
That doesn't mean the flu hasn't arrived, said assistant state epidemiologist Elizabeth Barrett. If the symptoms say flu, she said, it's probably the flu.
It is a bit early for influenza, say local doctors, who usually start seeing the virus in mid-January.
Regardless of the official diagnosis, illness is emptying schools. At Great Bridge Elementary in Chesapeake, school nurse Kathy Arbogast said 20 percent of the school's population was out sick Friday and Monday. ``That's an awfully large number,'' she said.
She's seeing about 50 kids a day in her clinic, most of whom she sends home. ``There's a lot of strep, and intestinal virus, even some chicken pox. It's fun at Christmas time.''
At Rosemont Forest Elementary in Virginia Beach, school nurse Lucie McIntosh said the faculty is also getting sick.
``It's early for this to be hitting,'' she said of the wave of absenteeism. On Tuesday, 101 children of the school's 800 were absent - an unusually large number, she said.
Winter illnesses like flu typically get their start with children, said Dr. Suzanne Dandoy, director of the Virginia Beach Health Department. ``The kids congregate and are in closer confined quarters,'' she said, so it's easier for them to pass on the germs.
With kids out of school during the holidays, she said, they'll probably go home and infect adults.
Pediatricians are hit with a double whammy - the apparent early emergence of flu, coupled with a strong dose of RSV, or ``respiratory syncytial virus'' - which can be dangerous for children under 2.
Lee admitted four infants to Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters with RSV last week. ``That's incredible,'' she said.
In adults and older children, RSV typically produces common cold symptoms - runny nose, cough, low fever. But in young children, those with respiratory problems or those with compromised immune systems, it can cause pneumonia or another illness called ``bronchiolitis.'' Those children may have to be hospitalized because they have so much trouble breathing.
Children's Hospital has seen 106 children - both inpatient and outpatient - test positive for RSV so far in December, said pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Douglas Mitchell. Many have been hospitalized.
Dr. Robert Fink, a private pediatrician with offices in Norfolk and Chesapeake, is in charge of the hospital's indigent patients this month. Nearly 75 percent of his patients are infants under 18 months, some as young as two to three weeks, with the virus, he said.
The numbers of RSV aren't that unusual for this time of year, Mitchell said. But, coupled with the other illnesses going around, they are making for an extremely hectic pre-holiday season in doctors' offices.
Dr. Stephen Q. Rodgers of Pediatrics at the Beach in Virginia Beach, said the ``sick side'' of his divided waiting room has been packed for two or three weeks. ``This is one of the biggest sick waves we've seen in recent years,'' he said earlier this week.
Rogers is lucky, though. He's getting a break from the runny noses and coughs. Starting today, he's off for five days. MEMO: COLD VS.FLU\ Here's how to read the symptoms, according to the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.
Fever: rare in colds, characteristic of the flu. High (102-104
degrees F), sudden onset, lasts three to four days.
Headache: rare in colds, prominent with the flu.
Aches, pains: rare in colds, usual and often quite severe with the
flu.
Fatigue, weakness: slight with a cold, extreme with the flu. Can last
up to three weeks.
Running, stuffy nose: common with the cold, sometimes with the flu.
Sneezing: common with a cold, sometimes accompanies flu.
Sore throat: common with a cold, sometimes accompanies flu.
Chest discomfort, cough: mild to moderate, hacking cough with a cold.
Common with the flu, can become severe.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by VICKI CRONIS, The Virginian-Pilot
A fever and other flu symptoms sent Elizabeth Hunt to Dr. Terry
Jones at Pediatrics at the Beach.
KEYWORDS: ILLNESS by CNB