RSV peak spurs push for vaccine development

Respiratory syncytial virus follows on the heels of flu, putting renewed strain on pediatric practices.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. March 15, 2004.

Robert Dowse, MD, a pediatrician in Cedar City, Utah, has spent this winter sprinting from exam room to exam room to see an usually large number of sniffling, sneezing and wheezing young patients.

"It's been pretty heavy," said Dr. Dowse, late last month. "We've doubled our numbers on a daily basis in the past three weeks, and we've been working hard and fast."

Local news reports in several U.S. communities have noted unusually large numbers of children sick with respiratory syncytial virus. Dr. Dowse is just one of many physicians strained by this year's activity. Flu hit early and hard in December, but RSV came quickly on its heels in January, filling doctors' offices, emergency departments and pediatric intensive care units with sick children.

"It certainly feels higher than ever before," said Don Bader, MD, medical director of the emergency department at Mercy Medical Center in Durango, Colo. "This has just hammered us. We're working harder, and the local pediatricians have had some clinic days where they've just been bursting at the seams."

Experts say the virus is following its normal two- to four-year cycle.

"Every year at this time RSV causes a substantial amount of disease," said Larry J. Anderson, MD, chief of the respiratory and enteric viruses branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The severity of a given RSV outbreak, however, varies from community to community."

But while the big picture might look normal, more focused views have doctors in the hard-hit locales wondering why them and why now. Some feel that there is truly more virus about than ever before. Others feel that more parents are bringing children in because of an increased awareness of respiratory illness due to recent attention paid to regular influenza outbreaks as well as the more exotic avian flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome.