Dr. Erin Reade, Children's Hospital at Erlanger says "We may be
in the waning period, but we are definitely not out of the woods
in terms of the number of children we are seeing with
influenza." Dr Reade says in the beginning the signs of
influenza, such as fever, runny nose, and cough, may look like a
common cold. Dr. Reade says "But pretty quickly over the first
24-48 hours it becomes apparent that this is a little bit
different." And in some cases patients develop Encephalitis, a
rare condition that can be deadly. Dr. Erin Reade says "In the
last five years here at T. C. Thompson we've had four cases of
severe influenza and encephalitis that we know of" Dr. Erin
Reade says "One of those cases was fatal and the other the
patient survived, but had a lot of neurological problems."
Encephalitis usually refers to brain inflammation caused by a
virus. ""Dr. Reade says about 60 percent of children who have
severe complications of influenza needing to be hospitalized
have some underlying illness." Dr. Erin Reade s