What are common symptoms of enterovirus D68?

The most common symptoms of Enterovirus D68 are fever, sneezing, runny nose, cough and body aches; plus, some kids may wheeze and have muscle weakness. Lisa Thornton, MD, explains these symptoms and what to look out for.

Transcript

00:00

If your child seems to be having a noise coming from their lungs when they exhale, that sounds like a high-pitched

00:06

sound, that is wheezing. And you might notice that your child is having more and more trouble breathing. That's something we want to get immediate attention for.

00:13

You want to call your pediatrician right away. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:22

The most common symptoms of enterovirus D68 are fever sneezing, runny nose, cough body aches.

00:31

Some children will wheeze. Now, the children that wheeze are typically children that wheeze already. So a child with asthma is more likely to wheeze

00:39

with enterovirus D68. Although a child who has never wheezed also might wheeze with enterovirus D68.

00:46

And wheezing is something you don't want to ignore. If your child seems to be having a noise coming from their lungs

00:52

when they exhale, that sounds like a high-pitched sound, that is wheezing. And you might notice that your child is having more and more trouble breathing.

00:59

That's something we want to get immediate attention for. You want to call your pediatrician right away. If you can't reach them in a short amount of time,

01:06

then you want to go get checked out. Either go to your doctor's office or to the emergency department. Wheezing can be serious, and it can worsen quickly.

01:15

And we have specific treatments for wheezing, whether it's caused by asthma or an enterovirus or the flu.

01:21

We can treat wheezing quite effectively, and we want to do that because wheezing can spiral downward. And in some very extreme cases, children

01:29

may require mechanical ventilation if they're wheezing too terribly. So you want to pay attention to that.

01:36

Now, another very, very rare problem that we've seen with enterovirus D68 is weakness, muscle weakness, limb weakness in children.

01:45

The weakness, as far as we know, cannot be prevented. This is such a rare complication. It's something that, of course, every parent

01:53

is concerned about, but there's nothing we can do to change the course of the virus

02:00

if it's going to cause that. This virus is a cousin of the polio virus. We cannot immunize against it, but polio virus has caused

02:09

weakness in rare cases. And so can this virus. That's something that parents should not

02:15

worry about too much. But if they do think that their child is showing any weakness, that is a cause for immediate care