In the past two weeks, there has been a steep rise in the number of confirmed cases of RSV in Canterbury and New Zealand.
Centre manager Mandy Hemopo at Linwood’s New Beginnings Preschool said there were only five children attending yesterday from the day’s roll of 36.
A respiratory illness had started to impact the centre on Friday, when attendance halved.
“We have never had illness this bad,” Hemopo said.
Even with highly contagious diarrhoea and vomiting bugs in the past, attendance had not dropped this low, she said.
Many families did not have access to a doctor, but of those that had seen a GP, one had said their child had RSV while others said their children had respiratory infections.
Support person Sue Lomas at Kimihia Care at Woolston said yesterday’s roll of 32 was halved as children were away with a cold-like illness.
“I have worked here seven years, this is the worst one we have had that I can remember,” she said.
Operations manager Sharalee Gibson at Halswell Quarry Preschool said one of the preschool’s two-year-olds was off sick with RSV and her baby sister had been hospitalised with it.
The two-year-old had contracted it while off sick with a tummy bug, so had most likely not been infectious while at the pre-school.
RSV causes infections of the lungs and respiratory tract. It typically circulates during winter. Symptoms are usually mild and mimic a cold, but can develop into severe infection in babies and the elderly.
Canterbury District Health Board deferred four surgeries yesterday due to an increase in paediatric patients requiring acute care.
Chief medical officer Dr Helen Skinner said those presenting with upper respiratory tract infections, such as RSV, had contributed to the increase.
Medical Officer of Health Dr Ramon Pink said in the past two weeks there had been 19 confirmed RSV cases in Canterbury, representing a steep rise and bringing numbers in line with averages for the same period in previous years.
Institute of Environmental Science and Research virologist Dr Sue Huang said for the week ending June 27, there had been 538 confirmed cases nationwide.
This was above average for the years prior to last year, when there were only 34 cases for the whole winter.
The population was currently vulnerable to the virus after not being exposed last year.
“So our pre-existing immunity isn’t there,” Huang said.
