But RSV, which mostly affects babies and toddlers, is likely to ‘come back’, the doctor says.
(Photo courtesy of Intermountain Healthcare) Andrew Pavia, director of epidemiology at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital and head of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah Health.
Two diseases that usually hit children hard in the winter – pediatric flu and RSV – virtually did not exist this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, says a leading pediatrician in Utah.
The bad news: Both may return next year with vengeance.
At Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, doctors have not hospitalized children with RSV this season – and only one child in Utah has been admitted to hospital with the flu, said Dr Andrew Pavia, director of epidemiology at Primary Children and head of pediatric infectious diseases at the University, said. of Utah Health.
Pavia said that 80 children per week with RSV will be admitted to the Primary Children, and a third of them must go to the intensive care unit.
As for the flu, Pavia said, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported about 1,400 cases of pediatric flu across the country – while a number in an average year would be in the 500,000 range, ‘he said. said.
“We’re seeing something I’ve never seen in the last 35 years,” Pavia said Monday during Intermountain Healthcare’s weekly coronavirus information session on Facebook Live. “This is really one of the good side effects, if you will, of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Some of the decline in flu can be attributed to COVID-19 travel restrictions, Pavia said, since flu strains are usually carried by people traveling from other countries. Pavia added that it is known that masks, hand washing and social removal dampen the spread of flu. [the flu] really dramatic, ”Pavia said.
The decline in RSV, which stands for respiratory synthesis virus, “is somewhat more confusing,” Pavia said. A major symptom of RSV is a runny nose, and nasal secretions are the best way to spread the virus. Therefore, masks and hand washing probably limit the extent of those secretions.
Children under the age of 3, who are most susceptible to RSV, do not come together as much during the pandemic, with fewer play dates and daycare visits, Pavia said. He also noted that older siblings who study online or have less personal school days do not bring home as many viruses.
All of this explains why RSV numbers would fall, Pavia said, but not why “it’s virtually zero across the country. ‘
According to one of the theory experts, there is not yet much evidence to support this, Pavia said: ‘is that viruses interfere with each other. And if one virus dominates the jungle, it essentially forces out all the other animals. … Viruses have these strange interludes that we do not fully understand. ”
The low flu and RSV are unlikely to last next year, Pavia said.
“It is very likely that when more flu and RSV are gone for a while, more people will be susceptible to it,” Pavia said. “So when it comes down to it, it spreads more dramatically and we see worse diseases.”
Flu rates tend to oscillate, Pavia said, with a mild year, often followed by a severe year. RSV, on the other hand, “depends a lot on having a new crop of babies every year that is completely susceptible to RSV. In Utah, there are still 50,000 good hosts for the virus to attack. This year we will have a whole “next year we will have babies who have never seen RSV, so next year we will have twice as many naive babies who are susceptible to it.”
Doctors in Western Australia, Pavia said, noted that RSV was largely absent there in June and July – if it is winter in the southern hemisphere – while the country brought its COVID-19 distribution under control. Recently, as COVID-19 restrictions have weakened there, doctors have seen a huge increase in RSV during the Australian summer.
“RSV is going to do something very strange when it comes back,” Pavia said. “It simply came to our notice then. Our gut feeling is that it will come roaring again and that we will have a bad RSV year when it returns. ‘