Caitlin Whyte (Host): Welcome to BayCare HealthChat. I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte. And in this episode, we are going to dive into the common children's viruses we are seeing in the post pandemic world. Joining us for this discussion is Pediatrician Dr. Monica Kharbanda. Well, to ground us in this conversation Doctor, can you first help us understand what happened during the pandemic when it comes to common children's viruses?

Monica Kharbanda, MD: Yeah, so we all know what happened in 2019 slash 2020, a cold virus, which caused havoc in the entire world. Children, adults, everybody got infected. Initially, everybody thought, okay, it's just a common cold virus, which is what it was, a coronavirus. But then it became a novel virus, meaning nobody had experienced or had been infected with it.

And that's when the problem started and we saw what happened. The whole world was closed. Everything was closed. There were so many people infected, so many deaths, so many hospitalizations. That made history. It's going to be in the history books for the generations to come.

Host: Yeah, it's so true. It's so weird. Well, then tell us what happened immediately following the pandemic. What did you see?

Monica Kharbanda, MD: So, yeah, I mean, you know, we saw the vaccine rolled, rolling in, which was initially offered to the healthcare professionals. And then it got rolled for kids and adults and, you know, slowly everybody started getting the vaccine and you know, things started opening up. So the problem happened was when everything started opening up for almost a year or maybe a year and a half, like, you know, I'm a Pediatrician. So I talk about   kids. These daycares were limiting amount of kids in the daycare. They were sending kids home if they had mild cold, mild fever. So they were super duper careful. Now the immune system of everybody went down because we were cleaning everything. We were even cleaning our fruits and vegetables.  

Monica Kharbanda, MD: So we were just being so careful, which was good. But then our immune system for one year, one year and a half was not exposed to any germs. In the office itself for us, we did not see a single ear infection for almost a year. We used to like joke around that I'm not even going to know how an ear infection looks like. You know, normally we see, I don't know, four a day or something. Like, bread and butter of pediatrics.

Host: My goodness. Well, update us now. Where are we now these days?

Monica Kharbanda, MD: Overall, of course in kids, COVID, at this time is like a common cold. Because it has got weakened and weakened and weakened. So I always tell my parents, I see kids more sick with other viruses like influenza or RSV or adenovirus than COVID.  Most of the kids recover very well, post COVID infection in this time and age.

And it's just little cold symptoms, cough, cold, mild fevers, and that's kind of it. But it's the other viruses, the influenza, the RSV, adenovirus, and other umpteen number of viruses that we are seeing more issues, issues in the sense more hospitalizations and kids getting more sick with that. 

Host: Well, help us understand then, what are the key viruses that are affecting children these days?

Monica Kharbanda, MD: The first one that comes in my mind is influenza or flu virus that we in layman term talk about. This is kind of the start of the season. In Florida, you know, we don't have seasons. So we don't have seasons for the viruses either.

And since COVID, we've seen that the flu infection, the flu virus that used to peak around, you know, November go up until like March. We saw a huge flu outbreak in summer, when everything opened. Everybody was so shocked at what's going on. And before COVID, we never even used to like, as we say, swab or test, the children in June because it was nonexistent. But the whole, the dynamics of every virus kind of changed since the shutdown and all the immune system, everything. And, we've started seeing more of influenza and it's become more and more, I would say, “strong.”

We see these kids getting really sick and we already into the flu season, we are giving the flu vaccines we are seeing a lot of flu positive kids in our office.  Again, it could be still cold, cough, high fevers, or it could be more serious like pneumonias or some kids can get hospitalized with dehydration, having a muscle breakdown, which is called as rhabdomyolysis, which, we've been seeing a lot too, which we used to see, but I think we just seeing more of it now.

Host: Well, I understand that we are seeing a resurgence of preventable childhood illnesses such as measles and chickenpox, is that correct?

Monica Kharbanda, MD: Oh yes. Because again, COVID some people could not get vaccinated because everything was closed. They were scared to go to  doctor's offices to get the vaccines. Then there was some that started refusing the vaccine. So for us in our private practice, we definitely saw an increase of people refusing regular vaccines, like MMR, which prevents against measles, we've been giving it forever. Chicken pox vaccine, which we've been using it forever. Or others too, people started refusing and say, “Oh, we as a country are giving too many vaccines. It's too much. I don't want to do that. Europe doesn't do this in European countries. They don't immunize against chicken pox or this country doesn't do that.”

And guess what happened? We started seeing more measles cases because these unvaccinated kids got exposed. And there's, especially in Florida, we live in Florida. There's so many visitors that come from all over the country, all over the world, and the chances of exposure is really high, and that's becoming a huge problem with these people refusing vaccines for commonly preventable diseases that if you get it, you'll die, you'll land up in the hospital, but all you need is a vaccine to prevent it.

Caitlin Whyte (Host): Now we are talking about common children's viruses here, but who really is at risk?

Monica Kharbanda, MD: Of course, the kids who are immune suppressed,   you know, kids who unfortunately diagnosed with cancer and they were on   anti-cancer therapy and their immune system is really low. There are kids who have some immune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, that they require a lot of medications and their immune system is very suppressed.

So these kids, if they get, say, measles or chickenpox or they get exposed, that's very serious for them to the extent that they can get hospitalized.

Host: Well, then, how can we protect our children and prevent the spread of these common viruses?

Monica Kharbanda, MD: First and foremost, washing hands, and then keeping them home if they're sick. Don't send them to daycares, don't send them to school. Very important, vaccines, you know, vaccines saves lives. So we cannot be saying, “Oh my God, I don't want this vaccine. This has this preservative in it, that preservative.”

And these vaccines have been there forever. They've been found safe forever. So that's the way we can go back in history when people used to get polio or they would have measles or chicken pox and they would die. These vaccines are there to save lives and we should take them and give it to our children.

Host: Yes. And my final question today for you, Doctor, when should a parent or guardian seek out that extra medical attention? When do these viruses maybe become more serious?

Monica Kharbanda, MD: So if you have continued fevers, if you having three to four days of fevers, that's what we tell our parents, you know, when they call us like day one of fever said, you know, maybe it's a virus, just hydrate the child, fever control and call us back. So day three, day four of fever is when we start getting worried about it and fever, meaning high fevers.

And then the second thing that is very, very important, especially in kids is you don't want them to get dehydrated. So if they stop drinking, if they stop eating, drinking is more important than eating. So then they're going to get dehydrated and they're going to land up in the hospital. So fluids and fever control is very important and then if your child is say, not drinking, just lying around, just doesn't look right to you, and of course is having continued fevers, that's the time you need to call your doctor and say, “Hey, it's been three days of fevers. My child is not, drinking. My child is not peeing enough.” So urinary output is reduced. So that's when we start getting worried about these kids.

Host: Well, thank you Doctor so much for joining us on the show today and helping us understand what viruses are out there these days. And that wraps up this episode of BayCare HealthChat. To find a BayCare doctor visit BayCare.org/Doctors for more information, and to get connected with one of our providers.

Please remember to subscribe, rate and review this podcast and all of the other BayCare podcasts. For more health tips and updates, follow us on your social channels. And if you found this podcast informative, please share it on your social media and be sure to check out all of the other interesting podcasts in our library. I'm Caitlin Whyte.

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