A one-year-old infant was hospitalized last week in life-threatening condition in the pediatric trauma room at Shaare Zedek Medical Center after developing epiglottitis, a rare and potentially fatal emergency in children. The child, who had not received routine vaccinations, was infected with Haemophilus influenzae type B, the most common cause of the disease. Severe swelling almost completely blocked his airway, and doctors saved him by inserting an unusually tiny tube normally used to ventilate premature babies immediately after birth.
Medics initially suspected that the boy had swallowed a foreign object, based on what his father said. A special endoscopic examination used to remove swallowed objects found no evidence of ingestion. After further questioning, the father disclosed that the child was unvaccinated, and doctors then suspected epiglottitis. Laboratory tests confirmed the diagnosis.
Dr. Efrat Blankinstein, a pediatric resident who treated the child, said, “If he had not been ventilated with a tube, the air passage would have been blocked, and the baby was very close to losing his life.” She said the child deteriorated rapidly over about two hours and arrived “at the very last moment.”
Blankinstein called the case extremely rare and said veteran staff had known it mostly in theory. She added that if the child had been vaccinated, the incident would have been prevented, and credited the trauma team’s preparedness and special equipment with saving him. Prof. Orly Magen, head of the pediatric department, said epiglottitis can progress quickly, causing breathing difficulty, drooling and fever, and urged immediate medical help if a child leans forward and cannot get air. She said the Hib vaccine is highly effective and prevents the disease in nearly 100% of cases, while lower vaccination rates have led to more serious infections in recent years.
