The surge in RSV cases following the COVID-19 pandemic may have been, in part, caused by increased testing and changes to the RSV genome, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Nature Communications.
Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is a common virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It’s actually a really common cause of respiratory tract infections in the United States and has particularly high disease burden in young kids, older adults and the immunocompromised,” said Judd Hultquist, Ph.D., assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and senior author of the study. “Most children, by the time they’re age two, have already had it and it’s a virus that we’re continually infected with over the course of our lives…”
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