Study Details Prevalence of RSV in Older Adults

About 2 in 100 adults aged 50 or older contracted respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)-acute respiratory infection during the 2019-2020 season, according to a study published online in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. 

“Our results from this observational multicountry study confirm that RSV disease is prevalent among the older adult population, in both community dwellers and those in long-term care (LTC) facility settings,” wrote corresponding author Dominique Luyts, MPH, of GSK in Belgium, and coauthors.

The prospective cohort study tracked RSV-acute respiratory infections among nearly 2000 adults 50 years and older in Europe and the United States during two consecutive RSV seasons.

Between October 2019 and March 2020, 1.84% of the community-dwelling adults and 2.26% of the adults in LTC facilities contracted RSV-acute respiratory infection, according to the study. Among those with RSV-acute respiratory infection, 17.4% of community-dwelling adults and 13.3% of adults in LTC facilities experienced complications. Although complications tended to be more frequent with RSV-acute respiratory infections than with other acute respiratory infections, most RSV-related complications were not severe. No hospitalizations or deaths occurred in the study population.

Between October 2020 and June 2021, just a single RSV-acute respiratory infection occurred. The affected adult was an LTC resident who experienced no complications. 

“Only 1 case of confirmed RSV-acute respiratory infection was detected in our study during season 2, when RSV virtually disappeared,” researchers reported. “This disappearance was due to nonpharmaceutical interventions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to disruptions in the transmission and seasonality of respiratory viruses, including RSV. These disruptions ultimately led to off-season RSV epidemics after lifting of nonpharmaceutical interventions, as documented in several countries in 2021–2022.”

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Reference: 
Narejos Pérez S, Ramón Torrell JM, Põder A, et al. Respiratory syncytial virus disease burden in community-dwelling and long-term care facility older adults in Europe and the United States: a prospective study. Open Forum Infect Dis. 2023;10(4):ofad111. doi:10.1093/ofid/ofad111