What should I do if I think my child has been exposed to enterovirus D68?
If you think your child may have been exposed to Enterovirus D68, there are a few things parents can do. In this video, pediatrician Alan Greene, MD, discusses how monitoring your child's breathing, having acidic foods and warm liquids can help.
Transcript
In contrast to 100 other enteroviruses, this one, D68, is vulnerable to two things.
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If your child has asthma, I would suggest monitoring them very closely. And since they might not wheeze, I
suggest using a peak flow meter. This is an inexpensive, portable, simple device. Just blow into it really hard.
And you get a readout of how their airways are functioning. It's green, yellow, red. It tells you just how concerned to be.
Now, while there is no vaccine for this, and while there is no known treatment for this, laboratory studies have shown two things
that can disable this virus. In contrast to 100 other enteroviruses, this one, D68, is vulnerable to two things.
The first is acidity, a PH of three. So just a squeeze of lemon or a spray of apple cider vinegar
is more than acidic enough to be able to disable this virus. And even common fruits like blueberries and apples
have enough acid that could make a difference. So I suggest having fruit at every meal to get acidity in the back of the throat just briefly.
The other thing that it's sensitive to is warmth. Any temperature above 98.6 is very difficult for this virus
to thrive. So I suggest soups and warm liquids. And if your child does get a fever, I wouldn't be in a rush to try to bring it down.
It might just be their body trying to raise the temperature to get rid of the virus.
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