Infants at risk of enterovirus, hospital warns

Doctors from the Chang Gung Children's Hospital yesterday issued a warning for pregnant mothers: In order to prevent your babies from contracting the enterovirus, avoid giving birth within the first three days after being infected with the disease.

"After the first three days of infection, antibodies against enterovirus will generate in expectant mothers' bodies. If pregnant women give birth to their babies after the first three days of infection, their newborns will not be affected by enterovirus," advised the hospital's pediatrician Chang Luan-yin (張鑾英).

Chang and two other doctors publicized the result of their research on fatal enterovirus cases of newborns at a press conference held at the hospital yesterday.

"Most fatal or severe enterovirus cases for newborns contract the disease from their mothers," said director of the hospital Lin Tzou-yien (林奏延).

"We had 146 enterovirus cases between 1989 and 1998, among them 10 were fatal cases," Chang said.

Among the 146 cases, 42 of them suffered from hepatic necrosis with coagulopathy. All the 10 fatal cases belonged to this group, Chang said.

After comparing the 42 cases with the other 104 cases, Chang said they found the 42 cases were younger than the other group when they contracted the disease. A high percentage of their mothers had upper respiratory symptoms and abdominal discomfort, Chang added.

According to Chang, the symptoms of the 42 cases included lethargy, high white-blood-cell counts, low platelets, low hemoglobin and liver failure.

According to the hospital's pediatrician Chou Yi-hung (周怡宏), babies infected with enterovirus are likely to become severe or fatal cases if they show the following four symptoms: high bilirubin, coagulopathy, low platelets and multiple organ failure.

Chou said the hospital will launch two research projects to help deal with the enterovirus.

The first is to give the drug pleconaril -- an orally active small molecule inhibitor of enteroviruses -- to newborns exposed to the viruses.

The second is to produce locally made anitbodies by using blood donated by Taiwanese people. Currently many enterovirus antibodies are imported from abroad, but it is thought that locally produced immunoglobulins would be more effective against enterovirus types common in Taiwan.