Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) caused more than 100,000 deaths in children under age 5 years globally in 2019, according to an analysis published online May 19 in The Lancet.
Researchers, led by You Li, PhD, of the School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University in Nanjing, China, found that nearly half of those (more than 45,000) occurred in children younger than 6 months old.
They estimated that RSV causes 1 in 50 deaths among children under 5 years old, and 1 in 28 deaths in children under 6 months old.
Additionally, RSV is responsible for an estimated 3.6 million hospital admissions globally each year, according to the report.
This analysis is the first to sift RSV disease burden into narrow age brackets, the authors say.
The numbers highlight that almost all of the deaths (97%) were in low- and middle-income countries.
Messages for Prevention
Tina Hartert, MD, MPH, a professor in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine at Vanderbilt School of Medicine, in Nashville, Tennessee, who was not part of the study, wrote in an invited commentary that these findings will be important in RSV prevention.
Dr Tina Hartert
Among the most notable findings, she writes, is the heavy mortality in the 0- to 6-month age group, which she notes is "the age group targeted by vaccination during pregnancy and birth-dose immunoprophylaxis."
