Use of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccines in Older ...

Taking Action Against RSV: Know The Signs And Symptoms

"RSV is a common and pervasive cause of acute respiratory illness that is highly contagious and usually affects an individual's lungs and airways," said Bill Gruber, MD, Senior Vice President of Pfizer Vaccine Clinical Research and Development.I "It can occur in people of all ages, but the risk of serious infection increases in older adults and for those with chronic heart or lung disease or weakened immune systems.

For older adults, RSV is a leading cause of moderate to severe respiratory illness.Ii In the United States, it is estimated that more than 177,000 adults over the age of 65 are hospitalized and 14,000 of them die each year due to RSV," he added.I

The disease burden of RSV in children is also staggering. Globally, there are an estimated 33 million cases of RSV annually in children less than 5 years of age, with about 3 million hospitalized and up to approximately 120,000 dying each year from complications associated with the infection.Iii

Elderly Person Coughing

Given the influx of circulating viruses, it is important to know the common symptoms of RSV and how to tell the difference between respiratory illnesses. RSV infections can feel like a common cold and include symptoms such as a runny nose, a decrease in appetite, coughing, sneezing, fever, and wheezing.Iv The virus can spread in many ways – through coughs or sneezes from an infected person, virus droplets getting in the eyes, nose, or mouth, touching a surface with the virus on it, and direct contact with the virus.V

"Since many of the symptoms of RSV may feel and appear similar to COVID-19 symptoms, people receiving a negative COVID-19 test may not take the necessary next steps to see if they have RSV," Dr. Gruber said. "If you are experiencing symptoms of RSV and not feeling better, it is important to go to your doctor."

Coronavirus pandemic prevention wash hands with soap warm water and , rubbing nails and fingers washing frequently or using hand sanitizer gel.

As with any virus, it is important to practice good hygiene to prevent the spread of disease, such as frequently washing your hands for 20 seconds and avoiding contact with others while sick. There is currently no approved vaccine available as a preventative option to help reduce the incidence and severity of RSV infections.I The medical community is limited to providing supportive care, such as oxygen and fluids, for those with severe infection.I

Senior Man Sneezing At Home

"There is a great medical need to develop a safe and effective vaccine as an option to help reduce the incidence and severity of RSV infections," Dr. Gruber added. "A vaccine for RSV, however, has been an elusive goal for over half a century, but now with our commitment to late-stage research and new scientific discoveries, we are closer than ever before to making a breakthrough to potentially develop an RSV vaccine for both adults through direct vaccination and infants through maternal immunization."

For more information on RSV, please visit pfizer.Com/RSVcommitment.

i Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Older Adults Are at High Risk for Severe RSV Infection." Accessed 15 June 2021. Page last reviewed 18 December 2020. Available at https://www.Cdc.Gov/rsv/factsheet-older-adults.Html

ii Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection (RSV) – Symptoms and Care." Accessed 07 September 2021. Available at https://www.Cdc.Gov/rsv/about/symptoms.Html

iii Collins PL, Melero JA. Progress in understanding and controlling respiratory syncytial virus: still crazy after all these years. Virus Res. 2011; 162 (1-2): 80-99. Https://www.Ncbi.Nlm.Nih.Gov/pmc/articles/PMC3221877/pdf/nihms326799.Pdf Accessed 07 September 2021.

iv Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "RSV Transmission." Accessed 07 September 2021. Available at https://www.Cdc.Gov/rsv/about/transmission.Html.

The post Taking Action Against RSV: Know the Signs and Symptoms appeared first on Reader's Digest.

These Are The Signs And Symptoms Of Flu, RSV And Covid In Kids

As temperatures begin to drop, a handful of respiratory viruses are spreading at unusually high levels in the U.S. And landing children in the hospital, and doctors are urging parents to be aware of what symptoms signal a serious illness.

Pediatric cases of the flu and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, are on the rise. Covid cases are declining in kids, but the coronavirus, too, is circulating at high levels.

Most children should recover on their own from infections of Covid, RSV or the flu, especially with rest and plenty of fluids, said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. But some, including very young children and those with underlying lung issues, may need additional care.

Here are the signs and symptoms to look out for if your child has a respiratory virus.

Does my child have RSV, Covid or the flu?

Because each virus typically begins as an upper respiratory infection, it can be difficult — if not impossible — for parents to know which one they are dealing with early on, said Dr. Kristin Moffitt, an infectious disease specialist at Boston Children's Hospital. Even for doctors, the only way to determine which virus is causing an infection is by using a test.

Early symptoms of Covid, RSV and the flu can look similar for many children, including:

Congestion

Cough

Runny nose

Muscle aches

Fever

Headache

A sore throat, Moffitt said, could be a sign of Covid, as doctors have noticed that infections with omicron subvariants often begin with sore throats.

At-home Covid tests can help parents determine whether Covid is the cause of their child's illness, although negative test results on rapid tests don't always mean a person is in the clear.

Children can also be tested for RSV or the flu at the doctor's office, usually with what's called a multiplex test, Moffitt said.

It's also possible, she said, for a child to be infected with more than one virus at the same time, known as having a coinfection.

Why are respiratory viruses dangerous for very young children?

It all comes down to anatomy: Babies and toddlers have much smaller airways than older children and adolescents. That means that when they get sick with respiratory viruses, their airways can fill up with mucus quickly, leading to breathing problems, said Dr. Deanna Behrens, a pediatric critical care physician at Advocate Children's Hospital in Chicago.

Children with underlying health conditions, such as chronic lung disease or heart problems, may also be at higher risk for severe illness from respiratory viruses, said Dr. Nusheen Ameenuddin, a pediatrician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Moffitt said that if parents are unsure whether their children need more help recovering from infections, they should call their pediatricians.

"Pediatricians' offices are very responsive right now trying to alleviate the squeeze that urgent care and pediatric emergency department settings are feeling," she said. They often "open sick slots and things like that to be able to assess children who are not improving and whose parents are concerned but don't quite meet the criteria for an emergency department evaluation."

When should a child go to the emergency room?

Symptoms that warrant an immediate trip to the emergency room include a child's refusing to eat, having difficulty urinating or breathing abnormally, Behrens said.

That is especially important, she said, for "infants and maybe even the toddlers who can't tell parents what is wrong with them."

Abnormal breathing can be exhibited as rapid breaths, loud wheezing or a struggle to draw in air, Behrens said.

Breathing problems can also manifest as the lips turning blue or the muscles between the ribs pulling inward on each breath, said Ameenuddin, of the Mayo Clinic.

If left untreated, severe cases of Covid, RSV or the flu can develop into pneumonia, an infection of the lungs, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital.

RSV, Hotez said, is also known to cause bronchiolitis, an inflammation of the small airways in the lungs. Both conditions can be deadly, especially in children with underlying health conditions.

Is there a treatment for RSV?

A child who is sick with Covid may be given steroids or the antiviral drug remdesivir, Moffitt said. Likewise, a handful of antivirals might be given for the flu, including Tamiflu.

There isn't a treatment for RSV, however, so a child who becomes infected with the virus and is sick enough to go to the hospital is usually offered only supportive care, which can include being put on oxygen, Moffitt said.

There is also no vaccine for RSV, Hotez said. A handful are in development, one of them from Pfizer.

And certain kids with underlying health conditions may be eligible for monoclonal antibody injections to prevent severe RSV.

Hotez also urged parents to get their children vaccinated against Covid and the flu.

"There are three viruses circulating," he said, "and if you can take one or two of them off the table by getting your child vaccinated, that makes things much more straightforward."

Ameenuddin said parents can protect their children who are too young to get vaccinated by creating a "cocoon" in which everyone around the children is vaccinated, decreasing the likelihood of transmission and severe disease.

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A Fight About Viruses In The Air Is Finally Over. Now It's Time For Healthy Venting

After four years of fighting about it, the World Health Organization has finally proclaimed that viruses, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID, can be spread through the air.

The operative phrase here is "through the air." It's plain language that anyone can understand, and this switch from jargon such as "airborne" and "aerosol" may finally clear the way for researchers to get funding to study better, real-life ways to protect people from a range of infectious diseases.

And just maybe governments, retailers, school authorities and others can now start to get solid information about ways they can clean indoor air. While it is going to take more than a wordy WHO statement to persuade gym owners that fogged-up windows mean too many people are huffing out potentially infectious air, the new wording does provide a better explanation of why it's gross and unhealthy.

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It took four years to get here because some leaders in public health, medicine and science clung too tightly to precision and semantics. No one disputes that respiratory viruses are spread by droplets. The disagreements were over what sized droplets really counted as droplets, whether they hung in the air and how far they traveled. There were debates over the definition of "aerosol" and what sized droplet that meant. Some experts refused to say—or to let anyone else say—that a droplet could remain suspended in air or travel over a distance unless it was, technically, an aerosol. They said that meant it had to be five microns or less in size—a definition that itself did not have a basis in modern science.

One particular moment of shame came on March 28, 2020, when WHO tweeted: "FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne."

So the initial guidance for people was that the virus was carried in droplets that fell to surfaces. It is transported that way, as are other viruses, and cleaning and disinfecting surfaces is useful in fighting a range of microbes.

But it's not the only way they spread. In the battle over what "aerosol" and "airborne" meant, public health officials lost sight of what was right in front of them: people were catching COVID by breathing contaminated air.

"It's terrible that it took them years," José-Luis Jiménez, a chemistry professor and aerosol expert at the University of Colorado, said. "By the end of March 2020, a lot of scientists had contacted them. It's not like they didn't have access to the information," added Jiménez, who has detailed the history of mainstream public health resistance to the idea of airborne spread.

WHO and other agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did come around eventually, and it's now broadly agreed that, along with measles, smallpox and tuberculosis, other infectious diseases can linger in the air and spread across rooms. "The descriptor 'through the air' can be used in a general way to characterize an infectious disease where the main mode of transmission involves the pathogen travelling through or being suspended in the air," WHO now says.

The agency also states: "These potentially infectious particles are carried by expired airflow, exit the infectious person's mouth/nose through breathing, talking, singing, spitting, coughing or sneezing and enter the surrounding air. From this point, these particles are known as 'infectious respiratory particles' or IRPs." There's no definition of particle size and no cutoff for when these germy expectorations will end with a splat on the floor instead of making their way into someone else's eyes, nose or mouth.

This should clear the way for funding more and better research on the transmission of infectious diseases—not just COVID, but influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and viruses that cause the common cold. That, in turn, should give managers of schools, retailers, airports and other public spaces the information they need to help keep air and surfacers cleaner. Because if people understand the physics of disease transmission, they can find ways to safely keep schools, shops and restaurants open during outbreaks and epidemics with better practices in ventilation, air and surface cleaning and foot traffic control.

Cases of influenza, RSV and other respiratory infections plummeted during the height of the COVID pandemic. Researchers are still studying why, but closures of schools and restaurants, remote working, handwashing, distancing and mask use all played strong roles. Flu, RSV and other respiratory infections came roaring back in 2024 as people returned to offices, schools, restaurants and large gatherings, largely without masks.

Could restaurants with ultraviolet lights and fans in the ceilings offer safer spaces to eat out during flu season? Can schools stay open even during disease outbreaks with upgrades to HVAC systems and low-tech fixes like windows that actually open? Ananya Iyengar of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and colleagues took a look at how one New York school kept infections down during the pandemic, for example, and found better ventilation improved indoor air quality. The cost? Along with a suite of other measures, about $880 per student per year.

Words matter. When people heard that COVID might spread on surfaces, they wasted time wiping down groceries. People who misunderstood airborne spread needlessly wore masks on outdoor walks and veered off sidewalks to avoid their neighbors. Stores spent countless dollars and employee-hours pasting "keep six feet apart" signs on the floor and routing one-way traffic through aisles in what was almost certainly a futile effort to limit disease spread.

Instead, an understanding of how viruses can drift out of an infected person's nose or mouth and then transmit infections for more than four hours can encourage a teacher to air out a classroom in between classes or a bar owner to serve drinks on the patio instead of forcing customers to jam together inside.

Another potential benefit: clearing air of germs will also cleanse it of pollen, spores and other particles that cause allergies and worsen asthma. Better circulation can also help clear out potentially toxic chemical fumes and dust. Residents of Louisiana still remember the noxious formaldehyde found polluting trailers FEMA supplied to Hurricane Katrina survivors. Better ventilation standards for new homes could reassure homeowners that they are not only at less risk for catching something nasty from their school-aged children, but also potentially safer from off-gassing carpets and furniture or mold spores. If people had cleaner indoor air all year long, would that cut annual cases of flu, the common cold and even asthma and allergies?

There's no guarantee a future administration won't once again mix up the messaging, but there will be much less excuse for government officials telling Americans they do not need to wear masks, as then surgeon general Jerome Adams did in a February 2020 post on Twitter. It will take years if not decades to win back the trust lost by the conflicting advice, but at least now some understandable language is available to use.

The new federal health research agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health or ARPA-H, has launched an effort called BREATHE, short for Building Resilient Environments for Air and Total HEalth, that promises to fund studies aimed at improving indoor air in buildings. The agency is asking for ideas and bids for ways to clean up indoor air in the same way water treatment and sewer systems revolutionized public health a century ago. It's a worthwhile area of study that deserves adequate funding.

"It's now respectable to do this research," Jiménez said. "People can get funding to do some research about indoor air and engineering systems. They are stepping into fields that they really wouldn't work on before. So you see some encouraging changes."

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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