Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was the first virus to emerge much earlier than normal this season. Since late December he has been inundated with pediatric hospitals in October and his November instead of the usual peak times of mid-February, resulting in a severe shortage of pediatric beds.
Viruses usually pose a particular risk to infants because they can inflame and block the small airways in the lungs.
But this year, RSV hospitalized a much wider group of children, including older children with no underlying medical conditions.
Dr. Chadi El Salivi, pediatric infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said:
Many experts suggest that RSV has worsened this year because of an ‘immune debt’ or ‘immune gap’ from years of social distancing and COVID precautions. Dr. Paul Offitt, professor of pediatrics at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, said last winter that much of the country was still wearing masks, practicing social distancing and being cautious.
“Not this year. People are back,” Offit said. “COVID will no longer change the way we live, work and play.”
With flu and RSV cases declining in recent years, people are not receiving the typical annual virus-created immunity “booster”.
“Maybe it’s the same reason the flu is definitely worse this year,” he said.
Other scientists are skeptical that mitigation measures have played any role in current trends. At a conference held in 2009, he said the emergence of H1N1 in 2009 similarly disrupted the usual patterns of respiratory syncytial virus and influenza the following winter.
“There was something going on with that virus that affects other respiratory pathogens,” Osterholm said.
Scientists also note that RSV appears to be not only more prevalent this year, but also more severe.
In the past, hospitals provided hydration, suction, and oxygen to patients diagnosed with RSV, but this year they had to offer more extensive respiratory support to more patients.
Poor immunity in the population may be part of the answer, but El Saleeby said having multiple viruses at once could also play a role. At MGH, several children tested positive not only for her RSV, but also for enteroviruses and influenza.
“These dyspnea can be exacerbated by being infected with multiple viruses at the same time,” said El Saleeby.
Ryan Gregory, a Canadian evolutionary biologist and professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, agreed that multiple factors were likely involved. He pointed to a recent small study published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. The study found that infection with COVID during pregnancy could alter fetal lung development, resulting in a child with lower lung capacity.
“That might explain why so many newborns are sick,” Gregory said.
Scientists have wondered whether the recent surge in RSV was caused by a new strain of the virus, but early analyzes suggest that is not the case. In a preliminary analysis posted, the researchers looked at the viral genomes of patients coming to MGH and several sites and found that rather than one dominant new strain, several versions of the existing virus were circulating. I discovered that online last Friday.
However, more strains of RSV-A appear to be circulating this year, which are usually more severe than RSV-B, which likely contributed to the increased severity of the recent surge, he said. said Dr. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease doctor in the United States. MGH, who co-led the research.
Other scientists have suggested that COVID infection may be altering the human body’s response to infection. Sometimes referred to as “immunity theft,” COVID Temporary or long-term immune system.
One of the controversial scientific theories put forward by Anthony Leonardi, an immunologist and graduate student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is that posit A COVID infection can wear away a key part of the immune system known as T cells, which contain much of the “memory” that a person’s body has of previous infections. COVID infection can overactivate T cells, causing them to age prematurely, over-engineer them for long enough to inadvertently cause organ damage, and be less effective against other viruses. You may be charged a period of time.
There are few definitive answers, but Gregory of the University of Guelph says it’s an urgent problem that the scientific community must get right.
“If it’s just immunity [gap]”If it’s just a numbers game and you get through it, it’s going to be a bad year and we got caught up and next year should be fine,” he said. The consequences are very serious if it is immunity theft.This year may not be the only bad year.”
Jessica Bartlett can be reached at [email protected]. follow her on her twitter @ByJessBartlett.
