RSV Responsible for 100,000 Global Pediatric Deaths in 2019, Study Confirms

According to statistics from a recent study, there will be more than 100,000 deaths in the global population caused by the respiratory syncytial virus or RSV in 2019.

Scholars from the Nanjing Medical University found that over half, or about 45,000, of the cases in the same year had occurred in younger people aged six months and under. The research was led by Nanjing's School of Public Health specialist You Li.

The authors estimated that the RSV is responsible for one of 50 pediatric deaths. The mortality rates included in this scale have children under five. Moreover, there are one in 28 pediatric deaths caused by the same condition in six months and younger.

Respiratory Syncytial Virus, What is It

RSV Responsible for 100,000 Global Pediatric Deaths in 2019, Study Confirms

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According to the paper, RSV is the prevalent cause of approximately 3.6 million hospitalizations worldwide every year. The authors said that their work was the first to carry out statistics on RSV infections in a specific and narrow age bracket.

The striking part of the analysis was that 97 percent of the deaths from the particular respiratory virus were recorded from low and middle-income countries.

Vanderbilt School of Medicine's Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine specialist Tina Hartert, who was not part of the research, explained that the findings from this new study serve as crucial evidence for further analysis regarding the RSV and prevention over the conditions, Medscape reports.

Hartert said that the most interesting piece of the findings is data consolidation from the heavy mortality of the children aged zero to six months. This age group is administered with vaccinations related to pregnancy and the birth-level dosage of immunoprophylaxis, she adds.

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Hartert collaborated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health specialist Justin Ortiz to work on a commentary regarding the RSV findings.

According to Hartert, RSV is a type of respiratory virus that commonly attacks almost every child who belongs in the age group of 2-3 years. The most severe infections and death from the RSV occur the most in infants at the youngest ages.

Up to this date, the most effective approach to treat and prevent the children from the issues and death caused by this virus is through the birth-dose vaccines given to the kids in their early stages of life, the experts continued.

RSV in the United States

Despite being prevalent in cases in low and middle-income countries, the RSV is one of the common causes of infant-related hospital admissions in the United States. The country incurs RSV cases in at least one to three percent of the total infant population, most of whom are healthy and were full-term.

Li's team published a separate study last year that focused on the RSV-related hospitalization rates in the US. Based on their previous findings, there were at least 98,000 to 155,000 hospital admissions linked to RSV in the five-year-old population of the country back in 2019. Out of this total estimate, 65,000 to 86,000 individuals were infants aged one year and under.

The study was published in The Lancet, titled "Global, regional, and national disease burden estimates of acute lower respiratory infections due to respiratory syncytial virus in children younger than 5 years in 2019: a systematic analysis."