Global, regional, and national disease burden estimates of acute lower respiratory infections due to respiratory syncytial virus in children younger than 5 years in 2019: a systematic analysis

🤖 Plain-English Summary

BACKGROUND: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most common cause of acute lower respiratory infection in young children. RSV passive immunisation programmes targeting protection during the first 6 months of life could have a substantial effect on reducing RSV disease burden, although more data are needed to understand the implications of the potential age-shifts in peak RSV burden to older age when these are implemented.

🔑 Key Findings

• We previously estimated that in 2015, 33·1 million episodes of RSV-associated acute lower respiratory infection occurred in children aged 0-60 months, resulting in a total of 118 200 deaths worldwide.
• Since then, several community surveillance studies have been done to obtain a more precise estimation of RSV associated community deaths.
• We aimed to update RSV-associated acute lower respiratory infection morbidity and mortality at global, regional, and national levels in children aged 0-60 months for 2019, with focus on overall mortality and narrower infant age groups that are targeted by RSV prophylactics in development.

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