Children less susceptible to West Nile virus, 

disease experts tell parents

TORONTO (CP) - Children are far less likely to suffer from West Nile virus than adults, Canada's leading children's hospital said Thursday as it nevertheless warned parents to limit their children's exposure to mosquitoes at summer vacations and camp getaways.

West Nile symptoms in children are uncommon and when an infection does occur, it is much milder than in adults and may not cause any symptoms at all, says the Hospital For Sick Children.

"Poor parents are out there worried about locking their children up and we just don't think that's the right way to go," said Dr. Lee Ford-Jones, an infectious diseases specialist at the hospital.

"Even if their children should become infected they are at very low risk of having a serious complication."

Since West Nile's arrival in 2001, the Toronto hospital took special note of young patients arriving with neurological problems in the summer and fall months - mosquito seasons that are prime periods for West Nile infection.

While several middle-aged and elderly people developed West Nile encephalitis after being bitten by infected mosquitoes, "only one or two" children developed such problems.

"Far and away, the more likely thing for a child is to have no disease apparent at all and certainly nothing that severe," said Ford-Jones.

West Nile, which can be spread to people and birds by infected mosquitoes, was blamed in the deaths of 17 people in Ontario last year, and linked to two deaths in Quebec, none of them children.

Despite this, most public warnings about the new illness at the time cautioned the very young and very old to take extra care while outdoors, she recalls. Ford-Jones said those warnings were wrong to single out kids.

"Every time I saw 'very young' I thought, 'Who is the clown telling them this? This is not true.' That 'very young' should never have been there."

Ford-Jones said children and adults are affected by the West Nile virus in different ways, much the way children appear less affected by severe acute respiratory syndrome and hepatitis A.

"It's just the pattern of response that children sometimes have to microbes that is much milder than what adults will have," she said.

These findings may lead some parents to believe it's better to allow their children to be infected while they are young, but Ford-Jones advises against exposing kids to West Nile so that they will be immune to it later in life.

"It's a perfectly understandable sentiment that children might be better off getting the infection now than when they're older, and by and large, that's absolutely true, but personally I stop short of saying that only because I know that the very, very rare child will get severely ill," she said.

She said parents should minimize their children's exposure to mosquitoes as much as is reasonably possible without restricting their summer fun too much.

Such measures include reducing mosquito breeding grounds around the home, dressing children in light-coloured clothing that covers arms and legs and applying insect repellent.

The ability of children to withstand the virus is the reason countries that have hosted West Nile for a long time have relatively few victims, said Ford-Jones.

It's only a matter of time before enough Canadian children become infected asymptomatically so that infection rates will decline here and we will see fewer elderly victims, she said.

Source: Canadian Press. Thursday, June 12, 2003