Padova, West Nile cases more than Covid in intensive care

Padua – “I have been in intensive care for over 30 years and have only seen one viral encephalitis West Nile All these years before that. Today we have 10 hospitalized in the Padova ward“. to say so Marina MunaryHead of the Neurostimulation Department at the Hospital of Padua.

“In 2018, there was another strong wave in Italy – he continues – but in our territory it did not reach such levels. We haven’t actually seen that kind of neural interference in these numbers. At first, when patients started at ages 2, 3, and then 4, we were surprised. It replaces Covid a little bit. The report, as our Director General explained, today is 10 in West Nile Hospitals and 2 for Covid in intensive care. Veneto and Polisin in particular are a vulnerable area on the West Nile But, despite it being an infection that’s been around for a long time, we’ve never known it by that expression, especially on a neurological level. That’s why we were taken by surprise. The most severe patients, with this type of nervous system involvement, should have access to intensive care and stay in the hospital for weeks. There is also an impact on the health system, in terms of lower turnover and therefore lower family availability. In other seasons in the intensive care unit, the impact of West Nile was almost zero here. As it is known, 80% of infected people do not have symptoms, 20% develop influenza syndrome and 1-2% have a more aggressive neurological expression, and this is what we are recording this year.”

“These cases are probably always 1-2% – munary causes – but this year there may be more people who have become infected and more invasive neuromorphs can be seen. We can’t know, because those infected are largely asymptomatic. But I think this may be an explanation. Or a mutation in the virus makes it more aggressive with respect to the nervous system, but if the virus mutates is an answer microbiologists can give. The Hospital of Padua performs analyzes of this kind. We are trying to evaluate these patients on several fronts, with investigations from a neuroradiological and bioradiographic point of view to try to better understand what else can be done from a therapeutic point of view, because there are currently no vaccines or other treatment specifications that can protect this type of patient.”