Respiratory syncytial virus

Efforts to prevent infections and keep vulnerable people out of hospital are beginning to pay off, but deploying these strategies presents new challenges.

If deployed effectively and equitably, this latest generation of vaccines could help to prevent countless deaths and hospitalizations among the young and old.

Drugs that counter RSV infection can safeguard newborns, offering another mode of protection alongside vaccines.

Respiratory syncytial virus is usually associated with babies, but the virus can also cause serious disease in older adults and people with chronic medical conditions.

Emerging evidence suggests that pathogens can pair up to work together against immune system defences.

By surveilling respiratory syncytial virus, the World Health Organization is hoping to understand who the virus infects and the burden it has.

The consequences of respiratory syncytial virus infection sometimes linger for years — and scientists are trying to work out whether there’s a causal link.

Why monitoring sewers could help to detect outbreaks, how RSV and flu viruses can couple together and other highlights.

Governments need to put remote communities at the forefront of strategies to prevent the respiratory disease.

mRNA technology shows promise for creating long-sought vaccines for RSV, as well as combination vaccines that target three respiratory viruses — RSV, influenza, and SARS-CoV-2 — at once.

A conserved allosteric site identified on the L polymerase proteins of RSV and HMPV can be targeted by a dual-specificity, non-nucleoside inhibitor that acts by inhibiting conformational changes necessary for RNA synthesis initiation and elongation.

Chimeric particles are formed when influenza A virus and respiratory syncytial virus coinfect lung cells in vitro.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions for COVID-19 also reduced incidence of respiratory pathogens such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Here, the authors report the resurgence of RSV in Australia following lifting of some of the restrictions and describe reduction in genetic diversity in circulating clades.

The prolonged persistence at elevated levels of nirsevimab, an RSV-specific monoclonal antibody, likely accounts for the observed protection from severe disease throughout an RSV season, while it does not prevent the induction of a natural immune response in RSV-exposed infants.

The approval of two vaccines and a monoclonal antibody that target respiratory syncytial virus could shift the tide on the prevention and treatment of infection with this virus.