Beyond the Noise #100: The return of Hib?

[3catwoman3]

1. This video is an excellent summary of the harm Hib used to do...

…and the terror is caused in pediatricians and peds NP like me. It left out one important scenario.

Epiglottitis presents similarly to croup, with a sore throat and hoarseness. Unlike bacterial Hib, croup is viral and affects the vocal cords, not the epiglottis. The hoarseness of a child with croup sounds terrible, but they are generally not dangerously ill.

Dr. Offit discusses how carefully a child with suspected epiglottitis was handled. The reason for that exquisite caution was that examining a child with an infected epiglottis could cause respiratory obstruction. The routine act of looking in the throat with a tongue blade could result in the infected epiglottis slamming shut, so to speak, over the airway and rendering the child unable to breathe, making intubation impossible, and a tracheotomy necessary.

After the introduction of the Hib vaccine, epiglottitis became pretty much a thing of the past, and it was such a relief to be able to examine a child thoroughly without fearing that using a tongue blade might either kill them or lead to an emergency tracheotomy.