The recall includes select lots of Up & Up Fragrance-Free Baby Wipes and Up & Up Fresh Cucumber Scented Baby Wipes sold nationwide.

Here is a list of the recalled products including their UPC codes:

Up & Up Fragrance-Free Baby Wipes

• 20 Count: UPC 085239265956
• 72 Count: UPC 085239265949
• 216 Count: UPC 085239265963
• 800 Count: UPC 085239266137
• 1200 Count: UPC 085239266090

Up & Up Fresh Cucumber Scented Baby Wipes

• 72 Count: UPC 085239265970
• 216 Count: UPC 085239265994
• 800 Count: UPC 085239265987

Health Risks and Symptoms

While healthy people may experience mild symptoms such as skin irritation or rashes, Bcc can lead to more serious infections including pneumonia or sepsis in newborns, premature infants and immuno-compromised patients.

Cook Children’s Infectious Diseases specialists encourage families to stop using the recalled wipes immediately and monitor children for symptoms.

“Early warning signs may include redness, tenderness, warmth or swelling on the skin, especially around cuts or abrasions cleaned with the wipes,” said Mary Suzanne Whitworth, M.D., medical director of Infectious Diseases at Cook Children’s. “Infants and young children may also develop fever, poor feeding, irritability or lethargy.”

Families should contact their child’s primary care physician or seek care at one of Cook Children’s Urgent Care Center or Emergency Department if a child develops symptoms or appears ill after exposure to the wipes.

At this time, Cook Children’s infectious disease team has not evaluated any confirmed patient cases linked to the recalled wipes.

What Should Consumers Do?

The FDA advises consumers to stop using the products immediately and return them to any Target store for full refund. More information available on the FDA website.

It’s a good question and one that Mary Suzanne Whitworth, M.D., medical director of Infectious Diseases at Cook Children’s understands.

“It can be confusing because there are viruses that you can catch that trigger long-term immunity,” she said. “However, COVID-19 is not one of them.”

She explains it this way – COVID-19 is in the coronavirus family. We all get a coronavirus each year and it usually feels like a cold. Even though we catch a coronavirus, our immunity is temporary so we may catch it again the next year, and the year after that. COVID-19 is the same. Even though you’ve had it once doesn’t mean you won’t catch it again.

“It’s very different from, say, the measles where you probably won’t catch the measles twice in your lifetime. Coronaviruses are different,” said Dr. Whitworth.

So what about the COVID-19 vaccine? We don’t know how long immunity lasts with it either, but Dr. Whitworth says it does appear to provide protection for a longer period of time than getting COVID-19. She points to this study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that examined two outbreaks at a nursing home in Kentucky. The first outbreak in July sickened 20 residents and killed five. Three months later in October, another outbreak hit the same nursing home. There were 12 residents who tested positive the first time who were still living at the facility. Five tested positive again.

“Three of those five had no symptoms during the first outbreak. This means those three were made worse by the second infection,” said Dr. Whitworth. “So, we know our immunity wears off after getting the virus.”

Another CDC study released in June shows people who had COVID-19, but didn’t get very sick, likely didn’t build up a strong antibody response, likely making them more susceptible to catching it again.

“The good news about this study is that it shows if you had COVID-19 and you got the vaccine, your protective antibodies will be even higher than someone who only got the vaccine,” she said. “The bottom line is that a lot of people who get COVID disease, but aren’t very sick, do not develop very good antibodies.”

Still, she knows a lot of people are worried about the potential side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine. It is a new vaccine, but scientists have been following the data and risks for seven months now. At this point, more than 155 million people in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated. That’s a lot of people. However, no vaccine is 100% effective. According to the CDC, 4,115 vaccinated people have been hospitalized or died with COVID-19 as of June 21. Of those “breakthrough infections,” 750 were asymptomatic.

“About 20% of the deaths in this group were not related to COVID-19. They were car wrecks, heart attacks, other things that people died from,” said Dr. Whitworth. “All of this is to say, it’s incredible how safe and effective this vaccine is. There’s not another one on earth like it. It’s as good of a vaccine as there has ever been.”

Recent reports about myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart, in young people have raised new concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine. Since April, there have been more than 1,000 reports of myocarditis in people who received one of the two COVID-19 mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna).

The CDC reports:

• Confirmed cases have occurred:
  • Mostly in male adolescents and young adults age 16 years or older
  • More often after getting the second dose than after the first dose of one of these two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines
  • Typically within several days after COVID-19 vaccination
• Patients can usually return to their normal daily activities after their symptoms improve. They should speak with their doctor about return to exercise or sports.
• CDC continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for everyone 12 years of age and older, given the risk of COVID-19 illness and related, possibly severe complications.

While this can sound scary, especially for parents trying to make the right decision for their child, Dr. Whitworth shares this:

• The number of vaccinated people who have contracted myocarditis is about one in 10,000 to 50,000.
• The NCAA tracked rates of myocarditis among its athletes who contracted COVID-19 before the vaccine was available. Thirty-seven, or 2.3%, of 1,597 Big Ten college athletes were found to have myocarditis through regular EKGs and MRIs.
• The risk of myocarditis from contracting COVID-19 infection is much higher than from the vaccine.

She adds that, like other coronaviruses, COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. She fully expects to see it circulating for years to come, making it even more important to get vaccinated. And if you think it’s easy to be the bearer of bad news day after day, it’s not. She’s going on 17 months of advising us about preventing COVID-19.

“It’s a lot of pressure sharing these opinions all the time, but I’m not scared of telling people to get the vaccine. I saw so much heartbreak watching the adult hospitals in Fort Worth have to call in morgue trucks because they ran out of places to keep the bodies. And we’ve held a lot of scared families’ hands here whose children required ICU care,” she said. “I got the Pfizer vaccine the week after it received emergency use authorization. My adult children got vaccinated. My parents were vaccinated. I firmly believe that it’s safe and it’s our best protection.”

Now that that’s out of the way.

They’re painful, not fun to look at and just all around annoying, for everyone, but especially for teenagers.

Which is why it’s important that parents and teens know what they are and what treatment options are available.

What are fever blisters?

Fever blisters are ulcers of the lips, usually at the border of where the lips meet normal skin. Other types of ulcers can be confused with fever blisters but these usually occur inside the mouth or on the tongue.

They are caused by a recurrence of a viral infection known as herpes simplex virus (HSV). Many families are not aware of their children’s first HSV infection because it may be mild or have no symptoms. They are contagious, so it’s not uncommon for multiple family members to struggle with fever blisters.

The sores can come and go, especially during times of stress, illness, sunlight or fever. Most commonly they’ll appear around prom or other times when pictures are super important (acne has a similar skill). Before the sores erupt, some people will feel itching or pain in the area, but not always.

How can we treat fever blisters?

There are two main considerations for treatment of fever blisters:

1. Who needs treatment
2. What strategy of treatment are we going to use

Treatment is unnecessary for most teens with fever blisters. If the pain isn’t severe and their outbreaks are small and short, it’s perfectly fine to keep an eye on them and treat pain with topical therapy or ibuprofen.

In children with more severe but infrequent issues, treatment with an anti-viral medication can be started when they first begin to feel the signs of an oncoming fever blister. This treatment has been shown to decrease the severity and length of the outbreaks.

“It started as a normal sickness. It was a fever, she looked pale and she was very tired and all she wanted to do was sleep,” Salazar said.

Natalie had gone to her pediatrician twice and was sent home with the diagnosis of “something viral.” Knowing the little girl was not getting better, Salazar’s family urged her to take Natalie back to the emergency room. That’s where they learned she was severely ill.

The hospital knew Natalie needed a higher level of care, so they called Teddy Bear Transport, which took her via ambulance to Cook Children’s Medical Center. From that point on, her mother knew it would be a long road ahead.

“One of the doctors turned to me and told me, your daughter is very sick and we see inflammation in her heart and she may need to be placed on the heart transplant list,” Salazar said.

Little did Alyssa know, her daughter was suffering from a rare, but serious condition. At Cook Children’s, Natalie tested positive for COVID-19 and her family later learned she had multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C). Her doctor, infectious diseases pediatrician Marc Mazade, M.D., says he is happy Natalie got to Cook Children’s when she did.

“MIS-C stands for multi inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19 and it is a hyper immune response to the COVID-19 virus infection. It usually happens sometime between two and four weeks after the infection and the infection doesn’t have to be symptomatic,” Dr. Mazade said.

Natalie had been exposed to COVID-19 a month before she started showing any symptoms. When Natalie got to Cook Children’s, her blood pressure was low. Her care team gave her fluids and could tell she needed to be admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Because Natalie had MIS-C, advanced treatment was required by a team of specialists familiar with the newly-described condition.

After five days at Cook Children’s, Natalie was sent home to recover. Thankfully, she didn’t need a heart transplant, however, her mom says COVID-19 is real and impacts everyone differently. She and her family are living proof.

“It could have ended differently if we didn’t take her in that third time. I feel like she probably could have died. I would have brought her home thinking I was going to be helping her, and the whole time I was going to be watching her die,” Salazar said.

Dr. Mazade hopes this is a teachable moment for all parents.

“If parents see those things developing or they know also know there is a history of COVID-19 infection within a close contact or a family member, then they should be highly suspicious of MIS-C,” Dr. Mazade said.

“It’s important to wash your hands before and after you eat, it’s important to wash your hands after you go to the bathroom,” said Mary Suzanne Whitworth, M.D., medical director of Infectious Diseases at Cook Children's. “Remember to do that with soap and water for 20 seconds. If you can’t use water, use hand gel.”

She adds handwashing is critical after you touch surfaces you share with other people.

“Handwashing with soap and water can prevent 1 in 3 people from getting sick with diarrhea and 1 in 5 people from getting a respiratory illness,” chief of the Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vincent Hill, said in an interview with CNN. "That is why handwashing is so important, especially at key times such as after using the bathroom, when preparing food, before eating, and after coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose."

This year's theme of Global Handwashing Day, Hand Hygiene for All, calls for universal hand hygiene to beat the virus today and ensure better health outcomes beyond the pandemic.

"This day is an opportunity to design, test and replicate creative ways to encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical times," the Global Handwashing Partnership noted. "After all, this simple behavior can save lives. For children, handwashing can cut diarrhea by almost one-half and acute respiratory infections by nearly one-quarter."

An easy way to help your children wash their hands properly is to pick a song to sing, like happy birthday, while they scrub.

“Keep yourselves safe. Help us prevent the spread of coronavirus that causes COVID disease and help us prevent the spread of influenza,” said Dr. Whitworth.

As of Oct. 12, the number of patients who have tested positive reached 1,657, with four of those patients currently in the hospital.

Pediatric cases of COVID-19 have been climbing along with overall cases in Tarrant County. On Sunday, Tarrant County Public Health reported an ‘uptick’ with 794 new cases.

“I’ve been asked frequently about the number of infected children, as well as the number of infected adults locally and throughout the state. We’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks that we’ve had more positive cases here,” said Mary Suzanne Whitworth, M.D., medical director of Infectious Diseases at Cook Children's. “Part of the reason we have more cases here is because we are doing more testing. If you double the amount of testing you do, you would expect to double your number of positive results. If you more than double your number of positive results, that means there’s more disease in the community.”

Cook Children’s COVID-19 positivity rate was near 2.5% in August. Today, our overall positivity rate is 5.3%. Dr. Whitworth says that rate is in line with statewide and national data for children. She says throughout the pandemic, less than 10% of all COVID-19 cases occurred in children under 15 years old.

“It is disturbing that our percent positivity rate is going up, and we also see that in Tarrant County,” she said. “Tarrant County is hovering around 10% positivity rate, while the state has dropped to around 7%.”

There are a number of reasons why this may be occurring, including people going out more and becoming tired of wearing masks and social distancing. She also says there are some cases at schools, but those haven’t been tremendous numbers.

So what can you do to protect yourself and your family?

• Wash your hands often, for 20 seconds with soap and water, or use hand sanitizer.
• Keep at least six feet away from others.
• Wear a mask.
• When around others, remember being outdoors is safer than indoors.

“As the holidays approach, I have wrestled with how to handle this and I know everyone else is wrestling with it too,” she said. “It’s going to be difficult to not be involved in crowded gatherings, but they’re not going to be very safe this year. Those are some of the things I think we can do.”

She says another important way to protect yourself and your family is to get a flu shot.

“There are decades of safety data with flu shots. They are safe. You can’t get the flu from a flu shot. You might be a little achy afterwards, but that beats having the flu where you might be in bed for a week with high fever and miss work or miss school.”

I tell you that not to freak you out, but to let you know how common it is. Most cases are typically mild. When we see sever disease, it's often in immunocompromised patients and those cases are uncommon.

What's important to remember is the children who died in New Jersey were all medically fragile and had weakened immune systems.

I know this kind of news can be scary, so I thought I would take some time to answer a few questions you may have.

What is adenovirus?

For most children, adenovirus causes mild symptoms. Sore throat, pink eye, fever and common cold symptoms are the most frequent. The symptoms are typically similar to but much less severe than influenza and can also be mistaken for strep throat. Like most viruses, the initial symptoms go away on their own in a few days but upper respiratory symptoms such as cough and congestion can last up to two weeks.

There are multiple different types of adenovirus, some cause more severe disease than others. They are all spread by close personal contact and by droplets spread by coughing and sneezing. In addition, adenovirus is pretty resilient and can live on surfaces. It can also continue to be spread by people with weakened immune systems, even after the symptoms have resolved.

Should you be worried?

Because adenovirus is usually a mild illness, most parents don't have to worry about the virus. The situation in New Jersey is a tragic combination of factors that led to this terrible outcome. Multiple children who are medically fragile living in close quarters. In addition the type of adenovirus which affected the children is known to be one that causes more serious disease.

So, what if my child is medically fragile?

If your child lives or will spend time in a group rehabilitation home investigate their cleaning practices. There is little evidence to suggest that this rehabilitation center has made significant mistakes that caused the outbreak, but you can never be too careful.

Otherwise, keep you child away from illness as much as possible. If they are sick with upper respiratory symptoms, monitor them closely for sign of difficulty breathing and seek help quickly

For the rest of us, it's important to remember to keep our kids home when they are sick so that we do not put other children at risk.

The Dallas Morning News reports that person from another state who had mumps traveled to Dallas for the National Cheerleaders Association All-Star National Championship, which took place Feb. 23-25 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. 

At this point no Texas residents have developed mumps in connection with the case, but people are urged to watch for symptoms. 

This is another reminder about the value of vaccination in preventing what can be serious illness. Mumps cases decreased 99 percent after the introduction of a successful strategy for vaccination.

Here's a quick look at mumps cases over the years according to the CDC:

*Case count is preliminary and subject to change

** Cases as of Jan. 27, 2018 Case count is preliminary and subject to change

A letter was sent to Hebron High School and Hebron 9^th Grade Campus parents to let them know a student had been diagnosed with active tuberculosis. The note stated that “medical officials have informed us there is a very low probability of this student being contagious.”

In Houston, parents of Sugar Grove Academy Middle School were also sent a letter saying a student was suspected of TB, but was recovering. School officials told parents they were monitoring the situation, and would let parents know if their child needed to be tested by Feb. 1.

“Fortunately because the health departments are monitoring the situation, the risk to other students is very low,” said Mary Suzanne Whitworth, M.D., medical director of Infectious Diseases at Cook Children’s. “People in close contact with someone who is contagious for tuberculosis are at highest risk. If the health department determines a teenager at the school is contagious they will notify families and arrange testing of those who may have been exposed.”

When a person who is contagious for tuberculosis coughs, their bacteria is airborne. If another person inhales this bacteria it goes into their lungs. They are at that point considered officially infected with TB. They may or may not ever develop symptoms of TB, but their TB skin test is likely to be positive after this event for life. This doesn't mean they are contagious for life, just that they will always test positive. People who have a positive skin test have to get chest X-rays every year to make sure they don’t have an active disease.

Dr. Whitworth says there’s about a 10 percent chance that the person will become clinically ill sometime during their lifetime with tuberculosis. The risk of becoming ill is much higher and can occur quickly in children under the age of 5 years. This is why a person who has been exposed is tested.

“If the test is positive they are considered officially infected and placed on oral medications to prevent those few bacteria in their lungs from developing into pneumonia or other forms of illness sooner or later in their lifetimes,” Dr. Whitworth said. “It takes a long time for someone to become contagious for TB, typically many years. This is why young children are almost never considered contagious. Even if they are sick with tuberculosis, they do not have a large enough bacteria count in their lungs to spread this to others nearby. “

Tuberculosis typically causes pneumonia with cough, fever, weight loss, night sweats, and chills. It can also cause meningitis, bone infection, and other more rare forms of disease.

The treatment varies from one medication for a child who has infection but is not ill, to several medications for up to a year in others. These are almost always given by mouth. Treatment is monitored by the health department. For ill individuals of any age the medications are delivered directly to the patient every day at home by the health department to make sure every dose is taken.

“When a person is fully treated, they most often have a full recovery, and also very importantly, there is minimal risk that they will ever be contagious to others again,” Dr. Whitworth said. “This is why our country has much less tuberculosis than many others, because we have good health departments who take this seriously.”

About the source

Mary Suzanne Whitworth, M.D. is the medical director of Infectious Diseases at Cook Children’s, which offers care for children and teens with diseases caused by bacteria, parasites, fungi or viruses. Our team provides a broad range of services including diagnosis, inpatient and outpatient consultations, immune deficiency evaluations and treatment of recurring infections.

Ensure school-age children know when to wash - before eating and after playing on a playground at recess, using the restroom, and coming into contact wiht friends and classmates. Teach kids that it's important not to chew their fingernails or touch their faces.

"Hand-to-mouth transmission is a major way children are infected by viruses," said Vanessa Charette, M.D., a Cook Children's pediatrician in Fort Worth. "Keeping hands out of the mouth is a difficult behavior for certain children to master, but it's important that they do."

Little hands can pick up a lot of germs. At any given time, you have close to 150 different bacteria living on your hands, and 80 percent of illnesses are spread by direct human contact. For kids, stomach bugs, strep throat and other bacterial illnesses can spread quickly, particularly in environments such as schools and day cares.

"I also tell young children to keep their hands below their neck. They don't rub their eyes, such their fingers or pick their nose," said Kim Mangham, M.D. a Cook Children's pediatrician in Keller. "Kids can have all the germs in the world living on their hands, but they don't put their hands in their mouth, nose or eyes, they won't get sick."

Having trouble convincing your children to get with the hand hygiene program? Let them know that fighting the spread of germs can be pretty cool. A recent study published in the American Journal of Infection Control concluded that fist bumping transmits far few bacteria than handshaking.