Richard Thwaites, Scot Buchan, John Fullarton, Carole Morris, ElizaBeth Grubb, Barry Rodgers-Gray, Jonathan Coutts
Summary
This paper surveyed national birth data for Scotland between the years of 2000 and 2011, providing the first study of the burden of RSV in Scotland, with an appreciable sample size of over 600000 patients. Hospitalised cases of RSV were defined as having RSV pneumonia, acute bronchitis due to RSV or acute bronchiolitis due to RSV. Based on these criteria 2.1% of children were hospitalised for RSV infection within the first 2 years of life, with the median age of hospitalisation being 137 days of age, and over 84% of admissions occurring within the first year of life. RSV was found to be responsible for 14.2% of all hospital admissions in children under 2 between December and January. A number of risk factors were also identified in this study due to particularly high rates of RSV hospitalisation, such as pre-term delivery, congenital lung disease, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, and neuromuscular disorders. This paper has provided further data on epidemiology and risk factors among European populations that will be indispensable in coming years as RSV treatments begin to be implemented.
Full article on PubMed.