From May 2021 through April 2022, rates of coinfection with RSV and SARS-CoV-2 were lower than expected based on rates observed with other endemic coronaviruses, according to findings published in Pediatric Pulmonology. Katia Halabi, MD, and colleagues examined rates of RSV/ SARS-CoV-2 coinfection during this period, identifying SARS-CoV-2 in 60 of 1,974 children with RSV, for a coinfection rate of 3%. The median age of children with SARS-CoV-2/RSV coinfection was 1.8; most (78.3%) were aged 5 or younger and 30% were hospitalized. Among children hospitalized with coinfection (N=18), the majority (66.7%) were infants; 50% of hospitalized children received oxygen supplementation and 50% were admitted to the ICU. Hospitalizations
were longer among children with acute RSV and convalescent COVID-19 compared with other combinations (i.e, acute vs convalescent) of coinfection. “Future studies across different seasons are needed to assess whether a prior RSV infection confers protection against SARS-CoV-2 infections or if it was merely absent due to our small sample size,” Dr. Halabi and colleagues wrote.
