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A Little Recognized Virus with a Big Impact

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  • Among the vaccines that you normally get, RSV may not come to mind, but it should.  

    It stands for respiratory syncytial virus and is a common and highly contagious illness that can be serious - especially for infants and older adults. More than 100,000 older Americans are hospitalized each year.   

    RSV infects the lungs and breathing passages and is spread through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.  Most people recover from RSV in a week or two, but some develop serious illnesses such as bronchiolitis and pneumonia.    

    The CDC recommends a single dose of an RSV vaccine for adults aged 75 and older, and if you’re at increased risk, 60 and older. Pregnant women should talk to their doctor about getting the RSV vaccine to protect their newborns.  But people have been slow to get it.  Why?  They don’t know about it, or they’ve bought into antivax misinformation.  However, a major Danish study may change people’s minds.     

    A 10-year study of 5,000 adults who had an acute RSV infection was compared with a control group. The results were striking. The RSV group was nearly three times more likely to die within a year.    

    The death rate was even higher for people with an underlying respiratory disease before the acute RSV infection, such as COPD or asthma. Hospitalization rates were also 60 percent higher, especially for people with asthma or COPD. Talk with your doctor about whether the RSV vaccine is right for you or your child. 

More Information

RSV triples a person’s risk for death within 1 year, study shows
Having acute RSV raised the risk for death within a year by 2.7 times among Danish adults. There are three RSV vaccines available for use in the United States, but uptake has been sluggish.

Risk of mortality associated with respiratory syncytial virus and influenza infection in adults
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection constitutes a substantial disease burden in the general population. However, the risk of death for RSV infection has been rarely evaluated with confounders or comorbidities adjusted. We aimed to evaluate whether RSV infection is associated with higher mortality than seasonal influenza after adjusting for confounders and comorbidities and the effect of oseltamivir on the mortality in patients with influenza infection.

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