The parents arrived in the Emergency Department looking terrified. Their baby was pale and looked sick. The child was breathing very fast, about a breath a second, and every time he breathed in his ribs sucked in as well. He was also making a strange grunting sound broken occasionally by a wet sounding cough.
 
The nurse measured his oxygen saturations at 90% on air and started the child on oxygen therapy before calling the Paediatricians. After a quick history and assessment of the baby the Paediatricians told the parents that their child had bronchiolitis and was going to be admitted. He would need help with his breathing and feeding for a while but that he should make a good recovery and with a bit of luck would be home within a few days. 

​The patient this week dies from a terrifying virus but fortunately we were only playing a board game! NB we were not sponsored for this review but enjoyed the game so much we thought we’d best share it with you all…
 
Pandemic Legacy Season 1 is a complex, cooperative game which is rather expensive for the average board game, so is it worth it and how realistic is it for those who actually know about infection? Am I going to be disappointed as a Microbiologist?

The Microbiologist sighed; yet another telephone call about poo. Didn’t they know it was nearly lunch time? This time the patient was a 4 year old who had had diarrhoea associated with cramping abdominal pain for a week. A stool sample had been sent to the laboratory and a result was available… the GP wanted to know what antibiotic to start as the child was having a birthday party next week and the parents wanted to take him and his friends to the local water park. The Microbiologist quickly turned into the “fun police” and strongly advised against both antibiotics and swimming! "Oh they will be disappointed!" said the GP.

The patient had sore itchy skin on her nose, face as well as around the margins of her eyelids. The doctor was convinced this was folliculitis and had been trying to treat the patient with antibiotics. So far they had tried a course of Flucloxacillin followed by Erythromycin but the patients symptoms hadn’t changed. Skin swabs had been sent to the microbiology laboratory on the last occasion to see if the patient had resistant bacteria but the results had come back showing no pathogens.