Respiratory syncytial virus seasonality: A global overview

Pablo Obando-Pacheco, Antonio José Justicia-Grande, Irene Rivero-Calle, Carmen Rodríguez-Tenreiro, Peter Sly, Octavio Ramilo, Asunción Mejías, Eugenio Baraldi, Nikolaos G. Papadopoulos, Harish Nair, Marta C. Nunes, Leyla Kragten-Tabatabaie, Terho Heikkinen, Anne Greenough, Renato T. Stein, Paolo Manzoni, Louis Bont, Federico Martinón-Torres*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of acute lower respiratory infections in children. By the age of 1 year, 60%–70% of children have been infected by RSV. In addition, early-life RSV infection is associated with the development of recurrent wheezing and asthma in infancy and childhood. The need for precise epidemiologic data regarding RSV as a worldwide pathogen has been growing steadily as novel RSV therapeutics are reaching the final stages of development. To optimize the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of RSV infection in a timely manner, knowledge about the differences in the timing of the RSV epidemics worldwide is needed. Previous analyses, based on literature reviews of individual reports obtained from medical databases, have failed to provide global country seasonality patterns. Until recently, only certain countries have been recording RSV incidence through their own surveillance systems. This analysis was based on national RSV surveillance reports and medical databases from 27 countries worldwide. This is the first study to use original-source, high-quality surveillance data to establish a global, robust, and homogeneous report on global country-specific RSV seasonality.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1356-1364
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Infectious Diseases
Volume217
Issue number9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2018

Keywords

  • Respiratory infections
  • Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)
  • RSV epidemiology
  • RSV seasonality
  • RSV surveillance

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