Medical,  Motherhood

Adenovirus: The Sneaky and Tricky Virus

Adenovirus is a common and usually a harmless virus. In fact, some people might even have it but are not aware of it because they are not showing any concerning symptoms.

However, why is this virus a big deal and why you do you want to be aware of it?

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), symptoms can range from mild to severe and serious illness with adenovirus is not common. For people with a good immune system, the infection can sometimes be asymptomatic. However for patients with weak or compromised immune system there is a higher risk of developing severe illness from the virus.

This sneaky and tricky virus can affect multiple organ systems. Unlike other viruses, adenovirus can cause respiratory illness (pneumonia, coughs, colds, flu, croup, bronchitis, etc), GI illness (the vomit/diarrhea bug), conjunctivitis (pink eye), sore throat, urinary tract infections, ear infection, meningitis, Kawasaki disease, hepatitis, hemorrhagic cystitis, colitis, pancreatitis, meningoencephalitis, and so many more.

[This is the part where I will start to talk about our personal experience with the adenovirus after the MMR vaccine. You can scroll down if you are only interested about adenovirus.]

My baby received his first dose of the MMR vaccine on February 20, Wednesday. The day after that he immediately had watery stools 2-4 times a day and it lasted for 5 days. I also started noticing some rash but I know it is expected from the vaccine. He started to develop a fever on February 27 and even though a fever is expected from the vaccine, I was starting to worry because his fever won’t go down below 101 even with medications. One day, he woke up screaming and crying and when I turned on the lights, I saw these hives on his arms.

I immediately called the pediatrician and described my child’s symptoms. This intimidating doctor repeatedly told me that the diarrhea, rash and a high fever are normal reactions of the vaccine. Thankfully I did not stop and called again. I spoke to a doctor from the Children’s Hospital. She told us to go to the ER because the symptoms are not typical.

The doctor who assessed my baby agreed that the reaction is just too much: signs of ear infection, swollen tonsils, rashes, high fever and red eyes. He ran some tests and my baby had the following results:

  • elevated monocytes, elevated AST, elevated C-reactive protein and positive to adenovirus

Finally, we have the answers! This nasty virus is causing all of these symptoms.

Mentioning the MMR shot is very important for me to include in our story because a doctor just easily dismissed my concerns, my child had the same symptoms expected after getting the vaccine.

My child could have gotten a virus or bacteria before the shot. The symptoms might not be related to the MMR shot but the point is that he did not even consider to check my son.

A child can encounter a different virus or bacteria few days before or after a shot. Assessment is very important for any kind of symptom to rule out the worst diagnosis before a doctor should conclude that it is a normal vaccine reaction.

How do you catch Adenovirus?

This virus has so many port of entry unlike other illnesses. Since this virus can be literally everywhere, you can catch it anytime and anywhere. “Most serotypes are stable at 36 °C for a week, for several weeks at room temperature, and for several months at 4 °C. Adenoviruses are very stable in the environment and persist for 7 days to 3 months on dry inanimate surfaces.They can also survive for many days in tap water, sewage effluent, and sea water.”

The general recommendation to control the spread of this virus is hand washing. If an infected person coughs or sneezes, this virus can stay and live on surfaces such as tables, cabinets, door knobs, toys, etc. for a very long time. If you touch a door knob and wipe your eyes, you can get a pink eye. If a child puts a toy in there mouth, the child can get a diarrhea.

How is the diagnosis made?

Most of the time your doctor will examine you and make the diagnosis based on the signs and symptoms that you have. Since it is a virus and there is no medication for it, it is not worth it to do the test to identify it’s presence.

Adenovirus infections can be identified using antigen detection, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), virus isolation, and serology. Adenovirus typing is usually done by molecular methods.

When is it important to identify the virus?

Since the virus can mimic so many diseases, it is important to rule it out to avoid unnecessary treatment and a wrong diagnosis.

I was so convinced that my baby developed measles from the MMR vaccine just like a lot of the anecdotes that we hear about vaccines. He had runny nose, fever, red eyes, dry cough, sore throat and rashes.

Management

Adenovirus rarely cause serious infection in adults and healthy children. However they can be life threatening to immunocompromised hosts, neonates and infants.

There is no medicine for this virus. Patients will be treated according to whatever symptoms they have. Supportive management of symptoms includes giving analgesics, anti-pyretics (fever reducer), anti-emetics (for nausea and vomiting), adequate hydration (especially when experiencing diarrhea) and oxygen supplementation and bronchodilators for severe respiratory issues.

However, I could not stress this enough, close monitoring is very important because this virus can affect multiple organs. It is very sneaky.

You can read the news here about a healthy 9 year old boy named Tristan who died on June 28 after developing a brain infection because of adenovirus.

update from March 20, 2019 :

Baby’s fever came back last Friday after 3 days of no fever. During those 3 days of being afebrile, we had to give pedialyte and milk with a syringe. We are force feeding him because we don’t want to go back to the hospital for an IV.

He’s been coughing a lot and fever is up to 104.3. Tomorrow will be the 4th day and if he is still febrile, we’re taking him back to the hospital for labs.

Baby has been sleeping in our bed and coughs in my face sometimes; we are not experiencing any symptoms of the virus.

 

Update July 2019:

Our boy was diagnosed with Compliment Deficiency and we are going to do more testing this coming November 2019. He’s been having multiple infections since our experience with Adenovirus in March.

 

12 Comments

  • Tiffany

    That is a sneaky virus, that I have to admit I had never heard of before. It’s scary that it can mimic so many other things! I hope that your baby gets better soon,and thank you for sharing this important information!

  • Ya

    I have never heard of this in my life. I am amazed at all that I learn through all you amazing mom bloggers. I hope your little one is okay! Such a cute baby.

  • jessica lynn

    awww…poor thing, and poor you! Way to go with your gut and get a second opinion. I kinda wish we could all walk around with personal sinks to constantly wash our hands. I’m trying to teach my kids how to be better hand washers, but it’s SO hard. hope he’s back to feeling his best soon!

  • Martha

    I found your blog looking for information on this virus. My 1-year-old son is currently sick with this virus, I went to take my baby to the pediatrician a week and a half ago because he had symptoms that seemed to indicate that he had an allergy (red eyes, runny nose and hives) his pediatrician was very sure that he had adenovirus that he was not even going to test for it. He did not have a fever at the time, so we decided to give him his 12-month vaccinations, which includes MMR. Two days after that, I woke up to him complaining I touched his skin and it was very hot, his temperature was 103.7. I thought it was because of the vaccines. The next day he got worse, we could not lower his temperature with anything, we went to the ER a respiratory panel test was done but came back “negative”. ER doc told me that It could be an ear infection so he prescribed amoxicillin. Two days later I went back to his pediatrician and he was retested, came positive for adenovirus. We are on day 5 of fever, puffy eyes, runny nose and cough, and today a weird rash appeared all over his body. Seems like is just getting worse. Kills me seeing my LO so sick.

    • Paige

      It’s really hard when our kids are sick. Just know that it’s possible and normal for them to have a fever 7-10 days after the MMR shot. your child might have a back to back fever/prolonged fever because of that.

      Adenovirus fever can last up to 7 days as well so the virus plus vaccine reaction might overlap.

      I hope your baby feels better soon! Just continue to hydrate and monitor urine output.

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