We are in the midst of the Covid pandemic19 which is causing a lot of damage to the population both in terms of health and society. CoV SARs is a virus that we didn't know anything about 1 year ago, we don't even know it existed, and now every day they tell us things that are being discovered about it and condition our day to day.
When we talk about pediatrics, what we do know is that, for the most part, it does not seriously affect children. Most children are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms that are often indistinguishable from the common infections they catch during childhood. We have only seen serious injuries or deaths with children with immunodeficiencies (altered defense system) or very serious underlying diseases. But apart from Covid19 but there are other viruses and some of them can be very serious in children and cause a large number of hospitalizations each year. One of these viruses is the respiratory syncytial virus (known as RSV) which is the leading cause of bronchiolitis and we are now about to enter the time when we see its epidemic.
Acute bronchiolitis is the leading cause of hospitalization in children under 2 years of age worldwide (Of all one-year pediatric admissions, one in five children is admitted with bronchiolitis). Of all bronchiolitis admissions, 1 in 10 children ends up requiring admission to pediatric intensive care.
This year I saw that in the winter of the Southern Hemisphere (June-September) the incidence of bronchiolitis has decreased somewhat surely due to the hygienic measures (hand washing, use of a mask) implemented by Covid19 but we cannot lower our guard. We have to get used to the fact that adults should try to minimize contact with children under 2 years of age, but especially with children under 6 months, and we will keep in touch, especially with clean hands.