B.C. teen no longer critical with avian flu, has been taken off oxygen
Global News
According to the case summary, the patient was a 13-year-old girl with a history of mild asthma who first reported to a hospital on Nov. 4.
We’re learning more about the B.C. teenager who became the first critically ill pediatric patient with avian influenza in North America earlier this fall, including some details about her recovery.
The new information was published in a case summary as a letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday, signed by multiple doctors from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, BC Children’s Hospital and Public Health Agency of Canada.
Prior to the publication of the letter, B.C.’s Ministry of Health had refused to provide updates on the teen’s status or their case “unless there is a need from a public health perspective to do so.”
According to the case summary, the patient was a 13-year-old girl with a history of mild asthma and an elevated body mass index (BMI) who showed up at a B.C. emergency room with a fever and conjunctivitis in both eyes on Nov. 4.
She was discharged home without treatment but returned to the ER on Nov. 7 after developing symptoms including a cough, vomiting and diarrhea.
The next day she was transferred to BC Children’s Hospital with rapidly worsening symptoms including respiratory failure, pneumonia and acute kidney injury.
Doctors began administering a trio of antiviral drugs in the days that followed among a suite of treatments including intubation, attachment to an ECMO oxygenation machine and renal replacement therapy.
Tests found no sign of resistance to the antiviral drugs, and the girl’s respiratory status improved enough by Nov. 22 to take her off the ECMO machine and by Nov. 28 to remove her intubation.
