_______________ east meadow ______________
your HEALTH body / mind / fitness
November 17, 2022
HERALD Your Health
With a focus on
ho lid ays
Healthy Holidays
Inside
Vol. 22 No. 47
Celebrating veterans
Madison Beer to host concert
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NoVEMBER 17 - 23, 2022
$1.00
Football can be anyone’s game By MAlloRY WIlSoN mwilson@liherald.com
Tim Baker/Herald
ElIzABEtH SERRA, 13, just finished her first season as a kicker and wide receiver for the Woodland Jets football team. She scored 16 points this season for the team.
For a long time, football has been a male-dominated sport, but that didn’t deter 13-year-old Elizabeth Serra from following her dream of being a kicker. Now, the Woodland Middle School eighth-grader has finished her first season as a kicker and a wide receiver for the Woodland Jets, showing her skill on the field. Elizabeth’s love for the game was sparked in third grade, after her teacher taught the class about the Super Bowl. That year’s game was between the New England Patriots Continued on page 16
Amid winter illnesses, shortage of often-used medication By MAlloRY WIlSoN mwilson@liherald.com
A national shortage of one of the most commonly used medications could be affecting local hospitals and doctors’ offices this season, according to health officials. The Food and Drug Administration listed a shortage of some forms of the antibiotic amoxicillin in late October. The antibiotic is widely used, especially in pediatric medicine, used to treat ear infections, bronchitis and other chest infections. Doctors prescribe it in four different forms — capsule, tablet, chewable tablet and liquid.
The FDA website shows that pharmaceutical manufacturers list “demand increase for drug,” as a reason for the shortage. This shortage comes at a time when the chest infection respiratory syncytial virus is on the rise in children. RSV is a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms in infants and young children. Adults can get it too, but typically they barely notice the symptoms. “RSV is a very common virus in children,” Dr. Sehar Ejaz, the interim pediatric chairman for Nassau University Medical Center said. “Almost all the children under age 2 at some point in
their young life get it.” The uptick of RSV comes after a time when children have been sheltered for the past couple of years due to the coronavirus pandemic. Usually only infants and young babies would catch RSV, but now, since children are back in school for the first time after being kept home, older children, like 4- to 5-yearolds, are catching it too. “It was good that they were protected for the past two years, but now there’s a lot of outbreaks in day cares and schools,” Ejaz said. “The virus usually occurs late fall and goes to early spring, and we see it peak from December to February but this
year we’re seeing it a little bit earlier.” Typically, if a child has RSV, antibiotics wouldn’t be prescribed because the virus tends to go away within five to seven days. The antibiotics are used more for bacterial infections, according to Dr. Ejaz. But, if RSV causes the child to have a bacterial infection, amoxicillin
is the first drug of choice. “Amoxicillin is our number one prescription that we basically use in children,” she said. “A shortage of amoxicillin is very concerning for pediatrics.” At NUMC, she has not encountered this problem yet, and the hospital doesn’t foresee that it will, but if the numbers of Continued on page 6