A virus most commonly seen in children is having an unexpected surge across the nation and in Augusta.
RSV, Respiratory Syncytial Virus, is not a new virus, and the number of cases is not unusual. What is unusual is the timing.
“I have never, ever seen an outbreak of RSV in the summertime,” said Dr. Jim Wilde, a pediatric emergency physician at the Children’s Hospital of Georgia and an expert in infectious disease. “This is completely off the map for this virus, and I have not found anyone with a good explanation for why this is happening.”
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RSV normally appears in October and is gone by March. It can affect people of all ages. For older children and adults, it presents like a bad cold with fever, runny nose and cough.
But for babies and children up to age two, the impact can be severe.
“We’ve had plenty of kids who have had to go on ventilators for RSV. It is a common thing for the very young kids who have to come into the hospital,” said Wilde. “Because we’re getting it now in the summertime, we’re also getting a lot of hospitalizations now. This is normally a time when a pediatric hospital like ours would have a lot of empty beds. Right now, we are just bursting at the seams.”
He said many children do perfectly fine at home, but he cautioned parents that RSV is not like a regular cold or respiratory disease that can run its course in about ten days. The wheezing that is one of the main symptoms can last two to six weeks.
There is no vaccine against RSV. What doctors do have is Respigan.
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“Respigan doesn’t prevent the infection; it’s a pre-formed antibody. It provides what’s called passive immunity, so if a child is exposed to RSV and gets infected, they already have the immunity onboard to fight it off,” Wilde said.
RSV is not spread through saliva, so coughing is not a major way it spreads. It is the secretions from the nose that have most of the virus particles. It is important to get children to blow their noses, then wash thoroughly or use hand sanitizer.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a Staff Reporter with The Augusta Press. You can reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com.
