MedPageToday A 13-year-old Canadian girl recovered after being hospitalized in critical condition with H5N1 avian influenza, researchers reported.
The girl was hospitalized on Nov. 7 and transferred to BC Children’s Hospital the next day, where she was intubated and put on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and treated with three different antivirals, David Goldfarb, MD, of BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, and colleagues reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
The girl had a history of asthma and a body mass index greater than 35. She first presented to an emergency department in British Columbia on Nov. 4 with a 2-day history of conjunctivitis in both eyes and a 1-day history of fever. She was discharged without treatment, but then she developed a cough, vomiting, and diarrhea.
She went back to the ED on Nov. 7 with respiratory distress with hemodynamic instability, Goldfarb’s group reported. The next day, she was transferred to the pediatric ICU at BC Children’s while on bilevel positive airway pressure. She had respiratory failure, pneumonia in the left lower lobe, acute kidney injury, thrombocytopenia, and leukopenia.