Burden of RSV falls mainly on youngest children, study finds, stressing need for better prevention – CBC

Nearly half of children hospitalized for virus in Canada’s pediatric hospitals were under 6 months

Oct 04, 2023

Nearly half of children hospitalized for RSV in Canada’s pediatric hospitals in recent years were under six months of age, a new study has found, calling attention to the need for preventative options to ease the pressure on intensive care units caring for the sickest.

In research published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open, Dr. Jesse Papenburg and his team from the Canadian Immunization Monitoring Program Active (IMPACT) looked at the number and severity of hospital admissions associated with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) at 13 pediatric hospitals, from 2017 to 2022.

Infections in that period resulted in 11,000 hospitalizations, with nearly half — or 5,488 — being children under six months of age. Doctors in other countries, such as the U.S. and Denmark, noticed a similar trend.

Hospitalizations also increased in the most recent year of the study, compared to pre-pandemic times, with nearly a quarter of the kids needing ICU care, like mechanical ventilation.

Burden of RSV falls mainly on youngest children, study finds, stressing need for better prevention – CBC

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