Ana Guzman of Yuma holds her 17-day-old daughter, Ithalia Reyes, in the infant care wing at University Medical Center. Ithalia is recovering from RSV, a highly contagious respiratory virus that can be fatal to babies and has hospitals in Tucson and Phoenix straining to accommodate all the sick children.

Jeffry Scott / Arizona Daily Star

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A highly contagious winter virus that can be deadly to babies is jamming hospital emergency rooms and children's wards here and around the state.

RSV — respiratory syncytial virus — shows up every winter, but this is a particularly bad year for the virus, said Dr. Mark Brown, a University of Arizona children's respiratory specialist.

University Medical Center and Tucson Medical Center — the only hospitals in Tucson with pediatric wards — are using every children's bed they have, largely because of RSV, Brown said.

"We're at RSV peak right now. It's just insane," said Dr. Dale Woolridge, a pediatric emergency doctor at University Medical Center. "All our pediatric wards are just totally packed, to the point that we're having to house kids downstairs in the ER because the beds are totally full."

Children's units at Tucson Medical Center have been "at or near capacity for the past three weeks," said nurse Annette Lindeman, TMC's children's services administrator.

Both TMC and UMC — the top hospitals for very sick children in Southern Arizona — have been asked to admit children from smaller hospitals in this part of the state and from Phoenix hospitals that have run out of beds. A Phoenix hospital called UMC last Saturday seeking beds for four children sick with RSV, but there were no empty beds in Tucson, Brown said. Banner Children's Hospital in Mesa sent a child to UMC on Wednesday.

RSV infects people of all ages and is most often not dangerous. But in about 20 percent of children's cases it causes illness serious enough to require hospitalization. And it is particularly threatening to babies under 6 months of age, premature babies and those with underlying health problems.

Typical symptoms are nasal congestion, cough and wheezing. Fever is less typical, but can signal serious infection.

Ithalia Reyes was just 11 days old when she was flown to UMC from Yuma eight days ago with life-threatening RSV. Ithalia's mother, Ana Guzman, became alarmed by the baby's labored breathing earlier in the week and took her to Yuma Regional Medical Center's emergency room.

The baby was admitted to the hospital, where she tested negative for RSV, but her condition worsened. Yuma doctors decided the next day day that she needed a higher level of care than they could provide. They were lucky: On Feb. 3, UMC had a bed available.

When Ithalia arrived at UMC she was having so much trouble breathing that her head was bobbing with each breath, said Dr. Cleo Hardin, UMC's chief of pediatric hospital medicine. But after about 12 hours at UMC — where an RSV test of her nasal mucus was positive — Ithalia's breathing started to improve, Hardin said. The baby may go home this weekend.

"I thought I was going to lose her," Guzman said Thursday, as she cradled her sleeping infant in her arms.

Because RSV is a virus, it cannot be treated with antibiotics. Standard treatment is oxygen and drugs called bronchodilators to help keep airways open while the virus runs its course. In some cases, a child's breathing becomes so impaired that he or she needs to be on a ventilator.

Pediatricians in the community say they are seeing a lot of RSV in their offices. "At least 50 percent of the kids coming in sick now have RSV, with runny noses, wet coughs and wheezing," said Dr. Brice Kopas, who has not had to hospitalize any of his patients.

The Arizona Department of Health Services has had reports of more than 800 RSV cases this winter, said David Engelthaler, its chief epidemiologist. Comparative numbers from earlier years are not available, because the department only started requiring reports last year, he said.

Find a video webcast, "Staying Healthy: Protecting Yourself Against Infections," at go.azstarnet.com/ viruswebcast