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A The delayed outbreak of respiratory syncytial virus, typically seen in young children during the winter, hit southern states particularly hard this summer with a concurrent rise in COVID-19 infections due to the delta variant, adding to concerns that hospitals will be put to the test.
The rise in new RSV cases coincided with the pandemic’s decline earlier this year, and doctors say they suspect social distancing, face masks and other efforts to verify COVID-19 outbreaks deleted last season.
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“In the winter of 2020-2021, we mainly saw [no RSV cases] … because the children weren’t in school. Everyone stayed at home, ”said Dr. John Schieffelin, pediatric infectious disease expert at Tulane University in Louisiana. “All the precautions we were taking for COVID, they impacted every other respiratory virus last winter. “
The virus, known as RSV for short, primarily infects infants and toddlers in winter and early spring via respiratory droplets released into the air when a person coughs or sneezes and through direct contact with contaminated surfaces. It is also the most common cause of lung infections such as pneumonia in children under 1 year of age. In adults, it looks like a cold.
RSV cases began to increase in April when families resumed activities outside the home without wearing masks or following other social distancing measures adopted last year to further mitigate the spread of COVID -19. More than 11,500 cases of RSV were confirmed from June to July of this year, according to a surveillance system maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency warned last month that the rate of RSV diagnostic tests turning positive was increasing in southern states, such as Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida and Texas.
Infectious disease experts rely on the percentage of positivity for viruses such as RSV and COVID-19 to give an indication of the extent of infection in a given area where testing takes place. The CDC has advised pediatricians in southern states to test their patients for RSV if the COVID-19 test turns out negative, as symptoms of the two viruses sometimes overlap.
In Texas, for example, the rate of diagnostic tests for RSV that came back positive in June and July ranged from about 30% to 40%, compared to less than 5% in the fall and winter, when RSV cases peak. usually. Meanwhile, Louisiana health officials reported that the RSV test positivity rate remained below 10% until mid-May, but climbed to nearly 30% in July.
Schieffelin, who also treats patients at the New Orleans Children’s Hospital, said the hospital was “completely full with a lot of very sick children with bad respiratory viruses” this summer.
The increase in RSV cases began in the spring around the same time that the highly virulent delta mutation became the dominant strain globally. Doctors cannot yet be sure whether earlier strains such as the UK-born alpha variant hampered outbreaks of RSV and other viruses last year, causing outbreaks of the winter virus to be delayed.
“As we move forward in the weeks or months to come, we will have an idea,” said Schieffelin. “It seems that in Louisiana our rate of RSV is starting to drop. This coincides with a slight increase in COVID cases, especially in children. Is it just a coincidence, or is it the delta variant that moves RSV? I cannot answer this question.
Schieffelin added that it is still not clear whether this wave is the harbinger of a serious flu season, but he said the coronavirus pandemic “has just turned everything upside down, and it will be really difficult to predict what we’ll be seeing with other viruses for the next couple of years.
The flu season was also very different last year, with cases remaining low for much of late 2020 and early 2021. Of around 819,000 influenza tests performed from September 2020 to May 2021 , only 1,675 came back positive. During the same period the previous year, the CDC estimated that 38 million people had the flu.
Most RSV patients who need to be hospitalized don’t stay there long – between 24 and 48 hours, according to Dr. Rick Barr, clinical director of Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Children with underlying medical conditions such as heart or lung disease are more likely to require longer hospital stays with supplemental oxygen. Full recovery from the virus could take around two weeks, he said, but most of that time is out of hospital. And, unlike the seasonal flu, there is no vaccine against RSV.
“For probably 50 years we have been trying to develop a vaccine against RSV. It’s just a very delicate virus that the immune system has to respond to, ”Barr said. “You don’t develop long-term immunity to RSV, so we believe children can get infected twice in the same year. You develop an antibody response to [the virus], but it doesn’t last very long.
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Southern hospitals are facing a high number of admissions due to RSV. January is always a busy time in terms of admissions due to RSV, but it gradually slows down as winter turns into spring. However, in July, “it really blew up,” Barr said. About 600 infants and young children attended the Arkansas Children’s Hospital emergency room or were admitted with RSV last month. Most years, he said, that patient load does not exceed 500 per month.
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Keywords: Health, News, Coronavirus, children, Vaccination, Viruses, Infectious disease
Original author: Cassidy Morrison
Original location: Children’s respiratory virus is making a strong comeback alongside the delta variant
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