Sue Huang, director of the World Health Organization’s National Influenza Center at the New Zealand Environmental Science and Research Institute, said the country’s strict restrictions not only stopped Covid-19 but also eliminated RSV and flu. and colleagues published in the journal Nature in February.
But as the country opened its borders to Australia, cases of RSV increased within a few weeks as the virus preyed on a larger-than-normal group of susceptible children. many were hospitalized.
Dr. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my 20 years of working as a virologist,” Huang said. “There is some degree of pre-existing immunity, usually due to the previous winter. When you don’t have that kind of protection, it’s a bit like wildfire. The fire may continue and the transmission chain continues.”
While doctors can test young children to confirm a case of RSV, and many people with cold symptoms will be tested to rule out Covid-19, most people probably won’t know the specific respiratory virus causing their symptoms, Dr. Kathyrn M. Edwards, professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Dr. “We see each other again and share our viruses, and I think we’re all a little bit more susceptible to viruses we haven’t seen,” Edwards said. “It’s hard to know exactly what each person has. In adults, the symptoms are generally the same, and you can’t tell if it’s RSV, rhinovirus, parainfluenza, or another cold virus.”
Satya Dandekar, viral infections and mucosal immunology specialistHe said that while isolation measures may not weaken our immune system, other factors such as stress, poor sleep habits and increased alcohol consumption may play a role in how the individual immune system responds to the respiratory virus.
Head of medical microbiology and immunology at the University of California, Dr. “There will be a tremendously variable response in society as to who will respond well to infections and who will get sick,” said Dandekar. -Davis School of Medicine. “When a person is exposed to a pathogen, the response from the immune system and immune cells needs to increase rapidly. With stress and other factors, the army of immune cells is somewhat hindered and slowed down and may not be able to respond fast enough to attack, giving the pathogen enough time to attach itself to the host. .