Seasonality and geographical spread of respiratory syncytial virus epidemics in 15 European countries, 2010 to 2016

Abstract

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is considered the most common pathogen causing severe lower respiratory tract infections among infants and young children. We describe the seasonality and geographical spread of RSV infection in 15 countries of the European Union and European Economic Area. We performed a retrospective descriptive study of weekly laboratory-confirmed RSV detections between weeks 40/2010 and 20/2016, in patients investigated for influenza-like illness, acute respiratory infection or following the clinician’s judgment. Six countries reported 4,230 sentinel RSV laboratory diagnoses from primary care and 14 countries reported 156,188 non-sentinel laboratory diagnoses from primary care or hospitals. The median length of the RSV season based on sentinel and non-sentinel surveillance was 16 (range: 9–24) and 18 (range: 8–24) weeks, respectively. The median peak weeks for sentinel and non-sentinel detections were week 4 (range: 48 to 11) and week 4.5 (range: 49 to 17), respectively. RSV detections peaked later (r = 0.56; p = 0.0360) and seasons lasted longer with increasing latitude (r = 0.57; p = 0.0329). Our data demonstrated regular seasonality with moderate correlation between timing of the epidemic and increasing latitude of the country. This study supports the use of RSV diagnostics within influenza or other surveillance systems to monitor RSV seasonality and geographical spread.

Change in respiratory syncytial virus seasonality in Finland

“…We lacked; however, the total number of obtained samples in the national registry data. Thus, the absolute length of the epidemic is difficult to measure in the present study as compared to other studies …”

“…Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most frequent cause of lower respiratory tract infection in infants, with a hospitalisation rate up to 35 per 1000 children younger than 1 year . RSV causes bronchiolitis, wheezing bronchitis and bronchopneumonia demanding respiratory support.…”

“…Epidemiology of RSV shows major differences between countries but consistency within countries in time . In most countries, the start, end and peak of the epidemic differs only 1‐3 weeks between the seasons .…”

“…Interestingly, in Nordic countries, biennial epidemiological pattern is typical with a large epidemic every 2 years alternating with a minor one. This kind of biennial seasonality has been reported, in addition to Nordic countries, in Croatia and Germany …”

Epidemiology and genetic variability of respiratory syncytial virus in Portugal, 2014–2018

“…RSV is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality since it is the major cause of lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) during childhood resulting in hospitalization due to the severity of infection in many cases [12]. Moreover, it causes severe respiratory tract infection in adults, especially elderly, and immunosuppressed patients [13,14]. Symptomatic supportive care and Palivizumab are currently available options to RSV disease clinical management, which reduce the symptoms and severity, decreasing hospitalization rate but not mortality [15][16][17][18].…”