Rhiza Labs FluTracker Forum

I live on the east coast of Canada and there has been something going on here for months like what others have said. I got a "really bad cold" in January..no temperature but went on for weeks and still have fluid in my ear from it. Haven't had anything like that since I was a child. Went to Dr. and was told that there has been not much flu but a lot of "really bad colds." 4 out of 5 of my family have had whatever it is..2 with fevers and 2 without. The "really bad cold" reminds me of when H1N1 was circulating and that's how many people described it.
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/fluwatch/11- ... ex-eng.php

Around town it's know as the (town name) Bug because everyone assumes it's something special about here. The reason? No one remembers having something going around before...and everyone is getting it. Symptoms are as described above except no one is calling it the flu. Lots of "ear infection, plus nasal infection, plus bronchitis". My husband ended up on antibiotics because of pneumonia back in December, and it's still circulating. Takes at least 3 weeks to spring back from, but the cough will go on for weeks longer still. Kids especially are susceptible, with lots of kids needing ventilation for a couple of days.

A friend of mine in Illinois was recently Hospitalized with Pneumonia secondary to Influenza A infection by rapid flu test. He's in his early thirties and an avid hunter/outdoors person. He was admitted for altered mental status and low oxygen levels. He said he was so "out of it" that he doesn't even remember people visiting him (Even after his blood oxygen levels improved). He never ended up on a ventilator, but he did require frequent breathing treatments. His neurological status was so unusual that they did a lumbar puncture to rule out menengitis. Then, he said after about five days of having trouble breathing, and feeling like he was in a brain fog (with acceptable oxygen saturations) he just sort of "got over it", and woke up and came back to normal. (His Spinal Fluid didn't grow out any bacteria, it was normal.)

I found his clinical presentation to be Extremely Similar to the several infants I've seen come into our Emergency Room over the last couple of months. They all have so much trouble breathing that they go on ventilators (Not so much from pneumonia (even though they have pneumonia) but because they're so lethargic that they just quit breathing. It's such a significant presentation (in these infants) that we also do Spinal taps, we do CT scans and on one we did an MRI. All tests come back normal. Then.... after a few days of being almost unresponsive... they just Wake up. And return to normal. I've never seen anything like it in all of my years of working Pediatric Intensive care. I've never seen such a cluster of similar symptoms that test negative for Flu, and negative for RSV. My friend, however, DID test positive for Influenza A. I have no idea if they did any subtyping. Very strange symptoms from some previously healthy folks this Winter.

If any clinicians are seeing anything similar Please post it here. This is a VERY odd virus (I'm assuming) because all ETT aspirates and Cerebral Spinal Fluids come back negative for normal bacterial culprits.
This is something that Presents Like influenza, but doesn't always test positive for influenza, and that has a really unusual neurological component to it that acts like a menengitis that eventually goes away after four to five days exactly... like on the DOT. These babies aren't in the hospital for longer than a week. After four to five days... these babies start moving, and it's like they Wake up and get over it, Just like my friend said he did. How wierd is that?

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"Old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wander, would ride through the air on a very fine gander."
1916
"Mother Goose had a house,
'Twas built in a wood,
Where an owl at the door
For sentinel stood."

Neurotopism has been an issue with infuenza for years. The 1918 pandemic (H1N1) had a long tern neurological component, which is why WSN/33 was created. WS/33 is the first human influenza virus isolated and so named because it was discover in the Wilson Smith lab in 1933. To study the neuropic aspect, it was passage in mouse brain to create WSN/33 which is a version of WS/33 that is neurotropic.

Similarly, one of the pathogenic parameters for H5N1 is the ability to grow in mouse brains (mice are infected and various organs are tested for the presence of the virus). Those that replicate in the brain are considered to be more pathogenic.

D225G has been found in the 1918 pandemic, H5N1, and H3N2v (it is in virtually all highly pathogenic H5N1, as well as all current H3N2v isolates).

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www.twitter.com/hniman

we have a guy in our unit who came in coughing up blood. (He'd been coughing for about a week). Coughing so hard that he broke a rib. He was coughing blood before he broke a rib. He doesn't have MRSA, or TB. He hasn't grown out any normal pneumonia causing bacterial pathogens in his sputum. Rapid flu A/B antigen negative (via nasal swab). Very odd clinical presentation. Not sure if they've sent any sputum off for PCR testing. As of Sunday night, he is still in intensive care, and still undiagnosed, and not getting better. The amount of blood he's coughing up, is impressive, (not just streaks) and it is bright red.

_________________
"Old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wander, would ride through the air on a very fine gander."
1916
"Mother Goose had a house,
'Twas built in a wood,
Where an owl at the door
For sentinel stood."

just to follow up on that last clinical situation. The man recovered finally. Still without a diagnosis. He did end up on a ventilator, but eventually got better and went home. He had a viral pneumonia picture by Xray, but no diagnosis. Rapid Flu testing was done via nasal swab initially, and was negative as usual. It was never repeated once he was intubated and on a ventilator. No bacterial or fungal pathogens were ever identified in his tracheal aspirates. It's still a mystery.

_________________
"Old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wander, would ride through the air on a very fine gander."
1916
"Mother Goose had a house,
'Twas built in a wood,
Where an owl at the door
For sentinel stood."

not seeing much flu here in the hospitals right now. However, we've all been made to take a flu shot this year... if not, we have to wear a mask throughout the entire flu season while at work. Never seen that before in the history of the hospital. I took the shot. Our flu season usually doesn't even start until after the first of the year.

_________________
"Old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wander, would ride through the air on a very fine gander."
1916
"Mother Goose had a house,
'Twas built in a wood,
Where an owl at the door
For sentinel stood."

I haven't really been working outside of NICU since September. However, flu symptoms are exploding among hospital staff (even though everyone in the unit I work in had a flu shot) An x-ray tech. came in the other day and said that he's never seen as many flu patients as he has in the last week.

In NICU, I've noticed a very weird number of near term infants born in the last month with unusually severe RDS that presents immediately and doesn't "act" like any normal disease process that I'm used to seeing after many years of watching babies have problems. It's significantly severe, always requiring a ventilator, and sometimes Nitric Oxide therapy. It presents with a mild pneumonia looking X-ray, and extreme tachypnea > 90 breaths per minute, with a significant oxygen requirement even on the ventilator. These babies test negative for bacterial spepsis, and generally recover in about five to six days. These babies are born with this illness and present immediately with symptoms at birth. We've had about four of these clinical scenarios in the last three weeks. I can't help but wonder.... does H3N2v (Or whatever this is) cross the placenta?

_________________
"Old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wander, would ride through the air on a very fine gander."
1916
"Mother Goose had a house,
'Twas built in a wood,
Where an owl at the door
For sentinel stood."

I was wondering about crossing the placenta also. I know that babies can be infectedby mother's milk, but assumed the virus didn't cross the placenta (in part because many babies are not HIV positive when bron to HIV positive mothers.
I have been tallying pediatric flu deaths and the recent death of a mother (38F) and her newborn raised the issue of transmission. The mother had flu symptoms for 2 weeks prior to death and an autopsy identified sepsis and bronchial pneumonia
http://southtownstar.suntimes.com/17654 ... agedy.html
I initially wasn't going top count the baby because I assumed she would be negative for influenza, especially if stillborn.

However, one report indocated the baby was born alive and died several hours after birth, so I was gloing to classify her as a pediatric death. Then the report above again cited stillborn, so I decided not to.

However, if influenza can cross the placenta, then it is likely that the baby was infected and death was linked to the infection.

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www.twitter.com/hniman

since I wrote that last post, we've had two more babies who have been born with severe RDS associated with plural effusions... one baby had a tremendous amount of thick yellowish white fluid trapped in his plural space needing a chest tube to evacuate it. Really odd. I've never seen a baby born with plural effusions, much less two within a week. second baby died.

_________________
"Old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wander, would ride through the air on a very fine gander."
1916
"Mother Goose had a house,
'Twas built in a wood,
Where an owl at the door
For sentinel stood."