Paris (AFP)
It is breathtaking babies and anguish their parents: the outbreak of bronchiolitis began in most of metropolitan France, with 4,000 emergency room visits last week and 1,400 hospitalizations, according to official figures released Wednesday.
The epidemic is "underway in all metropolitan areas except Corsica", which should not be slow to change since it is in "pre-epidemic phase", according to the weekly bulletin of the health agency Public Health France.
This epidemic is leading to "an increase in emergency room visits and SOS visits for bronchiolitis in the majority of regions".
Last week, 4,042 children under 2 years old were seen in the emergency room for bronchiolitis, and more than one third (1,419) were hospitalized. This corresponds to one in five emergencies and four out of ten hospitalizations in this age group.
An overwhelming majority (about 9 out of 10) of these small patients were younger than 1 year old.
Bronchiolitis also motivated 703 passages of SOS Doctors (4% more than the week before).
The epidemic is also continuing in the Caribbean, with the exception of Saint-Barthélemy, according to Public Health France.
Bronchiolitis is a common respiratory disease, affecting 30% of babies under 2 years of age each year (480,000 cases per year). Caused by a virus, it is very contagious. Main symptoms: coughing and difficulty breathing, which becomes fast and wheezing.
The epidemic comes this year in a context of saturation of pediatric emergency and resuscitation services in Île-de-France, which has caused in recent weeks transfers of children in the provinces.
In early December, the Ministry of Health launched a mission of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) to "resorb" before winter "tensions" affecting pediatric resuscitation services in the Paris region.
In addition, in mid-November, the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) published new recommendations for the management of bronchiolitis in babies under one year old.
The HAS does not recommend respiratory physiotherapy, widely practiced in France. These often impressive manipulations are supposed to help the baby to breathe better by evacuating the secretions which bother him but, according to the HAS, did not bring scientific proof of their effectiveness.
The HAS emphasizes, however, that physiotherapists have a role to play in the monitoring and follow-up of affected children via the bronchiolitis networks.
© 2019 AFP