Human respiratory syncytial virus
hideHuman respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes respiratory tract infections. It is the major cause of lower respiratory tract infection and hospital visits during infancy and childhood. There is no vaccine, and the only treatment is oxygen.
In temperate climates there is an annual epidemic during the winter months. In tropical climates, infection is most common during the rainy season.
In the United States, 60% of infants are infected during their first RSV season, and nearly all children will have been infected with the virus by 2-3 years of age. Natural infection with RSV does not induce protective immunity, and thus people can be infected multiple times. Sometimes an infant can become symptomatically infected more than once even within a single RSV season. Severe RSV infections have increasingly been found among elderly patients.
RSV is a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA virus of the family Paramyxoviridae, which includes common respiratory viruses such as those causing measles and mumps. RSV is a member of the paramyxovirus subfamily Pneumovirinae. Its name comes from the fact that F proteins on the surface of the virus cause the cell membranes on nearby cells to merge, forming syncytia.
For more information about Human respiratory syncytial virus, read the full article at
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News tagged with respiratory syncytial virus
Amid the flu epidemic, don't forget RSV in young children
Nov 23, 2009 |
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Influenza, particularly H1N1, has understandably captured the attention of public health officials, the media and the public. However, an analysis from Children's Hospital Boston, based on patients seen in its emergency department ...
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Severity of H1N1 flu in US during current flu season may be less than feared
Dec 08, 2009 |
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A new study from researchers at the UK Medical Research Council and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) projects that the severity of the H1N1 flu during the autumn-winter flu season in the U.S. will likely be less ...
New York autopsies show 2009 H1N1 influenza virus damages entire airway
Dec 07, 2009 |
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In fatal cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza, the virus can damage cells throughout the respiratory airway, much like the viruses that caused the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics, report researchers from the National Institutes ...
Transplant infectious disease experts provide pandemic guidance
Dec 03, 2009 |
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Surgeons and other healthcare professionals specialising in solid organ transplants have been issued with expert advice to guide them through the complex clinical issues posed by the global H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic.
UN: HIV outbreak peaked in 1996
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Nov 24, 2009 |
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(AP) -- The number of people worldwide infected with the virus that causes AIDS - about 33 million - has remained virtually unchanged for the last two years, United Nations experts said Tuesday.
Experts say radical measures won't stop swine flu
Nov 19, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Health experts say extraordinary measures against swine flu - most notably quarantines imposed by China, where entire planeloads of passengers were isolated if one traveler had symptoms - have failed ...
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