‘Ailing kids should not enter pools’

Kolkata: Parents of a 14-year-old Behala kid, who regularly swims at a local club, said the boy had breathing distress last week. He was taken to ICH, where he tested adenovirus-positive. “My son has never had asthma or any other lung disease,” said the father. “We were surprised when he started feeling breathless after a bout of cough and cold.” He added his son would not be swimming in the near future.Giving up swimming was not a solution, said paediatrician Apurba Ghosh, director of ICH. “Those infected should stop swimming until they are cured. But they can return to the pool once the outbreak is over,” he said.Adenovirus, said experts, can spread through droplets released from the nose and throat. It can be transmitted through an infected person’s stool and through water. The virus can survive for five months in a pool at 10° C.Parents should ensure the pools are treated with chlorine, and that kids with obvious symptoms are not allowed to enter pools until they get better, according to doctors. Chlorine treatment of water could help reduce infections in pools, said Sauren Panja, an intensivist at RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences. Panja agreed adenovirus transmission through water was not uncommon. “Last winter, it spread via air and now water is the transmitting medium. Symptoms are likely to be severe but less intense, as youngsters have better immunity,” he said.Among the experts TOI spoke to, Raja Dhar, director of pulmonology at CMRI , was the only sceptic in the water theory. He felt it was unlikely for adenovirus to spread through water. “It spreads through air but I am yet to come across any transmission case via water,” he said. “Pools here have a much temperature higher than 10 °C, so it is difficult for the virus to survive. But it’s possible it survives for shorter duration at a higher temperature.”
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