11 January 2014 (10:22 UTC-07 Tango)/09 Rabi ‘al-Awwal 1435/21 Dey 1392/11 Gui-Chou (12th month) 4711

The Arizona Department of Health Services reports 164 cases of  RSV so far this season.  32 of those cases showed up this past week. More than 80% of the cases involve children under the age of five.

Hospital officials in the city of Phoenix are telling kids to stay away from the hospital: “Any kids less than 12, we don’t like them coming to the hospital because they obviously are at a higher risk of carrying those infections and passing them on.”-Wassim Ballan, Phoenix Children’s Hospital

In Houston, Texas, an outbreak of RSV has sent hundreds of children to the hospital since the beginning of the 2013/14 flu season.  Just one hospital, Children’s Memorial Hermann, reports that since October they’ve admitted more than 140 children for the viral infection.

RSV is not the flu, but it might just be what most people have called the common cold.  The ‘season’ for human Respiratory Syncytial Virus just happens to be the same ‘season’ as for influenza.

Texas Department of State Health Services is reporting a 45% increase in RSV cases in December 2013, compared to December 2012.  By the end of December 2013 there were 600 confirmed cases of RSV in Texas.  State officials admitted they do not track deaths, but also said they haven’t heard of any, yet.

RSV hits children hardest. There is no vaccine, and treatment is limited to trying to help the patient breath and observation.

In New Jersey, by the end of December 2013 there were more confirmed RSV cases than confirmed influenza cases.  120 RSV versus 16 flu (of course that might have changed by now).

A study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases says grade schools are the main source of RSV infections.  The study was done in a rural area of Kenya, on the continent of Africa.  It concluded that “…for a high proportion of infant RSV infections, the source is from within the household and predominantly introduced by an elder school-going sibling…”-Wellcome Trust Research Program study

RSV also affects adults.  Another study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases says some transplant patients are at risk of getting RSV.  It involves hematopoietic cell transplant and lymphopenia: “This study identified a protective lymphocyte count level (more than 1,000/mm3), which might suggest that patients who acquire RSV during the first 100 days after transplantation do not require treatment if they have good lymphocyte counts. On the other hand, patients with the risk factors identified in this study may be good candidates for early antiviral treatment.”-Michael Boeckh, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Research Center

A study by the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation concluded that even though RSV is currently considered to mainly target children, older people are targeted as well, which challenges current beliefs that by the time most people become adults they’ve become immune to RSV.  At least 10% of hospitalizations of people 65 years of age, or older, for pneumonia is actually caused by RSV: “Knowing that adults’ susceptibility to RSV increases as they age is important for health care providers and public health officials to note as they treat and monitor respiratory illnesses this season.”-Edward Belongia, Director of the Epidemiology Research Center at Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation

A troubling study involving mice suggests that getting sick with RSV as a child, and infected again as an adult is not a good thing.  The study was published in the Journal of Virology, it basically says your immune system has a short term memory regarding its encounter with RSV when you were a kid.  This immune system memory is called Innate Immune Pathogenic Recall Response: “Infection with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in neonatal mice leads to exacerbated disease if mice are reinfected with the same virus as adults……….These findings indicate a hitherto unappreciated role for the innate immune response in governing the pathogenic recall responses to RSV infection.”-Delayed Sequelae of Neonatal Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection Are Dependent on Cells of the Innate Immune System

The above study would also suggest that if a vaccine was made it would be of short term benefit only.