The emergencies of the CHU Purpan children's hospital.

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B. Colin / 20 Minutes

  • Winter syndromes, bronchiolitis and gastroenteritis are experiencing epidemic peaks at the beginning of spring, with many visits to emergency rooms and hospitalizations.

  • For the head of pediatric emergencies at the Toulouse University Hospital, the shift in these highly contagious viral infections is a sign of relaxation in terms of barrier gestures.

For several days, the pediatric emergencies of the Toulouse University Hospital have been on the brink of an epidemic which its managers would do well.

Admittedly, the number of children affected by Covid-19 has increased, with now one to two cases per day when until some time ago they were one to two per week.

But it is not the coronavirus that saturates this service.

These are two delayed epidemics: infantile bronchiolitis and gastroenteritis.

Epidemic peak in France

Two winter syndromes which are experiencing an epidemic peak at the beginning of spring, with more than thirty daily visits to the Purpan emergency room.

A phenomenon that is not uniquely Toulouse.

In its latest "bronchiolitis" bulletin published Thursday, Public Health France underlines that all metropolitan regions have gone into an epidemic phase and that the indicators remain on the rise.

This translated into 953 hospitalizations last week out of the 2,433 children under the age of two who passed through emergency services.

For Professor Isabelle Claudet, head of pediatric emergencies in Toulouse, this upsurge in acute viral infections of the bronchioles in babies and gastroenteritis "is the reflection of a relaxation at the level of barrier gestures".

In general, these syndromes very contagious by direct and indirect contact occur from November until March, with a peak in December.

This year, the period before the holidays was that of confinement and the maintenance of barrier gestures within families.

“But we can see that they are less and less respected.

We see it at the entrance to the children's hospital, one in ten people use the hydroalcoholic gel that is at the entrance while a year ago, in March 2020, everyone would have wanted to shower with it. “, Tackles the practitioner who calls for resuming the reflexes of last year.

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  • epidemic

  • Emergency room

  • Gastroenteritis

  • Coronavirus

  • Toulouse

  • Health