After battle with RSV, Colorado family hopes new drug will protect others
Cases of RSV skyrocketed across Colorado and the Maples family's 4-year-old daughter Meadow had contracted a severe case leading to her having to be intubated for eight days.
By KAREN MORFITT
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COLORADO (KCNC) — Last November the Maples family was living day to day.
“We were looking for any sort of light at the end of the tunnel,” Jamie Maples said via Zoom with his family now stuck at home battling COVID.
CBS News Colorado first spoke with the Maples family last fall, as the cases of RSV skyrocketed across Colorado and their 4-year-old daughter Meadow had contracted a severe case leading to her having to be intubated for eight days.
“Those 8 days were the longest days probably of our lives,” he said.
Dr. Karen Woolf is the medical director of the emergency department at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children.
“I’ve been practicing in the emergency department for over 20 years and without question that was the most significant RSV season I have ever seen,” Woolf said.
The FDA’s approval of a drug designed to prevent RSV in infants and toddlers, she says, will be a huge benefit not just for families but hospitals as well.
“It was a major tax on the system we literally ran out of beds there were kids all over the state waiting in emergency departments,” she said.
The drug is different from a vaccine, which works to help your body build antibodies his drug is an already-made antibody.
“It has about four-to-six-month duration the hope being it will get you through the bulk or all of RSV season,” she said.
After nearly a month in the hospital Meadow was released on Thanksgiving and wanted one thing: ”Jump on trampoline,” Meadow said through Zoom.
Her leaving the hospital her parents say was a moment they will never forget after an experience they hope; with the help of this new drug, other families can avoid.
Jamie Maples has one wish for other families: “I really, really hope that people don’t have to experience what we did.”
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