Saravanos GL, Sheel M, Homaira N, Dey A, Brown E, Wang H, Macartney K, Wood NJ.
Summary
Saravanos et al provide a long term and comprehensive study of Respiratory Syncytial Virus infection in Australia. This study aimed to estimate hospitalisation rates across the whole Australian population, while paying attention to factors that may influence this, such as age, race, sex, seasonality and geography. This study examined 63 814 hospitalisations in the period between 2006 and 2015, and found 94.4% of them to be in children under 5, with children under 2 months of age having the highest rate of hospitalisation within this bracket. Rates of hospitalisation were also found to be higher in those over 65, as well as in individuals of indigenous descent. Despite the majority of hospitalisations occurring in children under 5, the majority of in hospital deaths (59%) were found to occur in people over the age of 65, highlighting the difficulty of treatment in this group.
Full article on PubMed.