2024-04-18 07:37:00
In recent weeks, a wave of infections with the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has swept across Austria. According to official US authorities, the danger of the disease has apparently been underestimated so far. A new study has shown that almost a quarter of sick seniors suffer a heart complication.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC/Atlanta), which are world-renowned in medical circles, have recently increasingly dealt with RSV infections. Since last year, there have been vaccines that, on the one hand, are intended to protect babies by immunizing expectant mothers during pregnancy, and on the other hand, vaccines for people in the age group over 60. Infants and seniors have an increased risk of serious illnesses.
More dangerous complications than with flu and Covid-19
The results of a new CDC surveillance network were recently published in the US journal JAMA: the course of the disease in people over the age of 50 and with RSV infection confirmed by laboratory testing was evaluated for the years 2014/2015, 2017/2018 and 2022/ 2023 – each for the classic “seasons” for such diseases. The group of people analyzed was 6,248 hospitalized older adults with a mean age of 72.7 years. Almost 60 percent of those affected were women.
The observations suggest a higher rate of complications due to acute cardiovascular diseases in the course of RSV diseases with hospital admission than with influenza and Covid-19. With an estimated frequency of 22.4 percent, almost one in four patients developed such a disease in addition to the infection. In 15.8 percent, for example, this was acute heart failure. 7.5 percent developed ischemic heart disease (unstable angina pectoris, heart attack, etc.), and 1.3 percent slipped into a high blood pressure crisis. 18.6 percent of patients admitted to hospital because of RSV required intensive care. The mortality rate was 4.9 percent.
So far, seniors have not been tested
Study author Rebecca Woodruff (CDC) compared this with the complications following influenza or following Covid-19 illness: Scientific studies showed a frequency of acute heart failure of 5.5 to nine percent in the course of severe influenza with hospital admission, among hospitalized people According to studies, this was the case in four to 8.5 percent of those affected by Covid-19 patients. According to the study authors, a stronger inflammatory reaction may be responsible for the RSV complications. It is easy to explain why the risk of RSV complications has been underestimated so far: seniors with severe respiratory diseases have so far been consistently tested for influenza and Covid-19, but not for RSV.
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