RSV continues to run rampant in Northeast Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - More and more Northeast Ohio children are ending up in the hospitals with the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

According to staff at University Hospitals, they are admitting four to five children a day with increases in the emergency department and pediatric offices.

The virus most commonly impacts a child’s ability to breath because of inflammation in the small airways in the lungs.

There is hope as national studies are looking into a vaccine and possible treatments, which UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital is also involved.

A CDC funded study of RSV, testing a maternal vaccine
A study testing the immune response to RSV and other similar viruses (partnering with Akron Children’s, CCF and Metro)
A study looking into the host immune response in adults with COVID and non-COVID respiratory viruses, which includes RSV (studying RSV across the age spectrum)