CNN
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When Covid-19 patients younger than 5 also test positive for another respiratory virus, they tend to become sicker and develop more severe disease, a new study suggests.
Among hospitalized children younger than 5, testing positive for both Covid-19 and another respiratory virus at the same time is associated with about twice the odds of severe respiratory illness than those who tested negative for other viruses, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Pediatrics.
The study comes amid a harsh season of respiratory viruses, including RSV, flu, Covid-19 and other viruses that overwhelmed children’s hospitals. The findings demonstrate the impact respiratory viruses have on pediatric hospitals and how “continued surveillance” of circulating Covid-19 and other illnesses can help predict future surges in hospitalizations, wrote the researchers, from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and various universities and health departments across the United States.
Caring for young children with overlapping respiratory illnesses was something Jenevieve Silva has experienced firsthand throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The height of the illnesses was from September through mid-November, when our household just could not catch a break,” she said.
The mother of eight, based in San Jose, California, said that her toddler-age twin boys “have been battered by viruses” since they started preschool in May 2021.
Last October, Silva’s twins tested positive for Covid-19 and then developed what their pediatrician suspected was another respiratory viral infection, possibly respiratory syncytial virus or RSV, around the same time.
“Based on what the pediatrician told us, she said ‘I highly believe that they had these overlapping viruses,’” Silva said, adding that the boys’ symptoms included shortness of breath, cough, fatigue, and fever, with one twin having a 105-degree fever for four days straight.
Warm baths and massaging Vicks VapoRub onto their backs and chest helped ease their pain, but watching her boys battle these respiratory illnesses was “brutal,” Silva said.
“They had just looked so frail – they looked sick, like something deeper than just back-to-back viruses,” she said. “It was hell. I mean, it was really bad.”
‘I can’t be the only mom dealing with virus after virus’
The boys have recovered and are currently “doing great” and have gained healthy weight, Silva said, but she worries that they developed asthma following their illnesses.
Ever since October, when they had the overlapping viruses, “the doctor has now said it seems like that might have triggered asthma in them. And so now, ever since then, when they get a cold, they have asthma symptoms – violent episodes of coughing, sometimes throwing up,” Silva said.
“I can’t be the only mom deal …