Rise in gastroenteritis cases cause for concern |27 June 2015

Parents and caregivers are being urged to take special care with their children following unfortunate deaths resulting from gastroenteritis.

In a press conference held at the Seychelles Hospital yesterday morning, Doctor Xavier Rose, a consultant pediatrician, expressed concern over the rise in cases of severe gastroenteritis dehydration which are being reported each day.

Dr Rose noted that the Health Care Agency (HCA) of the Ministry of Health has recorded a rise in the number of gastroenteritis cases in children below the age of five which has peaked to 85 out of 10,000.

Gastroenteritis is a condition that causes irritation and inflammation of the stomach and intestines, so the manifestations of this are vomiting, diarrhea and fever.

The most common cause of gastroenteritis is a virus or bacteria and for children it is the usually the rotavirus. Rotavirus is the world's most common cause of diarrhea in infants and young children.

Children can get dehydrated quickly, so if your child has the ‘stomach flu’, it's important that you look for signs that he is very thirsty or has dry skin or a dry mouth but may be having difficulty taking in fluids.

If you have a baby look out for drier diapers due to reduced urine outputs. And even when the child is crying there are no tears coming out.

There are many ways gastroenteritis can be spread, such as contact with someone who has the virus or contact with that person’s stool or vomit, contaminated food or water, unwashed hands after going to the bathroom or changing a diaper.

Speaking about two children who lost their lives shortly after being admitted in the children’s ward, Dr Rose said: “Unfortunately we’ve also had a couple of cases coming to the hospital in a clinical state of shock and they lost their lives”.

He pointed out that those two infants, aged 13 months and five months, who arrived in that state, they took a long time before reaching the hospital for treatment and in that state of shock they have lost a lot of fluids and their organs were already damaged.

“This particular shock is one caused by low blood volume called Hypovolemic Shock,” he said, adding that it is very difficult to reverse this process.

In a similar case there was also another five-month-old infant who died shortly after being admitted to the casualty. All of these cases happened during the course of two weeks.

“This is a highly dangerous and contagious epidemic virus and parents are advised to keep a look out. If your child is showing any of the symptoms you have to take your child to the doctor and do not wait until it is too late. Check with your doctor before giving your child any medicine as drugs used to control diarrhea and vomiting are not usually given to children younger than five.

Parents and caregivers are also asked to keep their children with gastroenteritis out of daycare or school until all symptoms are gone. At home you are advised to keep the normal standard of hygiene.