Kids across Canada dealing with respiratory illnesses at pre-pandemic rates: CIHI report

Kids across the country are dealing with respiratory illnesses at numbers hospitals haven’t seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report says.

The report, from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) says in 2022, there were only 33 kids under four years of age who were hospitalized with the seasonal flu — but that number jumped a whopping 7,000 per cent, to almost 2,500 in 2023.

CIHI’s Nicole Loreti told 680 CJOB’s The Start that data shows bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma, and COVID-19 are all on the rise.

“Canada-wide, pneumonia was a top five reason for hospital stays. There was a big increase — more than 50 per cent increase — from the previous year,” Loreti said.

“Among that group of 0-4 (years old), it was three times increased from the previous year, to almost 10,000 hospital stays.”

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The purpose of the report, Loreti said, is to raise awareness.

“It kind of reinforces the need for some of those public health measures. For example, every year in the fall, there’s a flu vaccine that’s available for everyone six months and older, and the flu vaccine can really help to reduce the likelihood of severe complications due to flu.

“Same with COVID-19 boosters that are usually available… we did see among that 0-4 age group a 43 per cent increase in hospital stays due to COVID.”

CIHI’s director of acute and ambulatory care information services, Juliana Wu, said the organization intends to continue monitoring these trends to help equip health-care decision-makers with the data they need to meet the needs of Canadian children.

“Having a baby or young child in hospital for any reason is tremendously difficult on families, and this increase in hospitalizations for respiratory illnesses among Canada’s youngest patients presented additional challenges for hospitals,” Wu said in a release Thursday.

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