New research suggests the COVID-19 pandemic is responsible for more severe resurgences of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in children younger than 5, making them more prone to infection and hospitalization and shifting the disease burden to older children.
In a retrospective study published on April 18 in JAMA Network Open, researchers found that the 2021 and 2022 RSV seasons among older children were worse than those before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. Notably, young children aged 2 to 5 years old were nearly five times more likely to be hospitalized due to RSV in 2022 than at any time between 2015 and 2019, and the epidemiological characteristics of the RSV season shifted to warmer months.
Researchers from Colorado used patient data from the Pediatric Hospital Information Systems database from the Children’s Hospital Association to identify cases of RSV and non-RSV bronchiolitis to compare age-specific changes in RSV hospitalization before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of 924,061 children under age 5 included in the study, 348,077 were diagnosed with RSV, and 575,984 were diagnosed with non-RSV bronchiolitis between June 1, 2015, and March 31, 2023. Of those diagnosed with RSV, 187,850 children were hospitalized, admitted to ICU, or visited emergency departments or observational units.
The study found that post-pandemic RSV cases increased for all age groups, but especially among children in the 2- to 5-year-old age group. In contrast, the incidence of bronchiolitis hospitalization decreased or remained unchanged compared to earlier seasons.
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