ATLANTA — As many travel and gather for the holidays, most people are aware of COVID-19 and its variants. However, health officials are issuing a warning about an illness that should be on your radar this holiday season.
Respiratory syncytial virus is about two weeks away from reaching its seasonal peak. RSV is an illness that infects the lungs and breathing passages. Luckily, there's a trial happening for a vaccine that could potentially help with prevention.
Many associate RSV with children under two years old, but health experts want to remind everyone that people 60 and older are also at high risk.
“RSV causes about 177,000 hospitalizations and approximately 14,000 deaths in the us annually for those over the age of 65,” said Research Coordinator Lilian Vargas from Mount Vernon Clinical Research.
Being vaccinated against the coronavirus does not protect you from RSV. While some of the symptoms can be compared to COVID, Vargas said RSV is better compared to the flu.
Here are the main symptoms:
- Fatigue
- runny nose
- decrease in appetite
- coughing
- sneezing
- wheezing
- low-grade fever
- sore throat
- headache
“Its the second leading cause of respiratory tract illnesses in adults behind only influenza,” Vargas said.
The CDC said people infected with RSV are contagious for three to eight days and most recover within one to two weeks. While there's not a cure right now, Mount Vernon Clinical Research is working on a phase-three trial sponsored by Moderna to create a RSV vaccine. It will use some of the same technology used to create the COVID vaccines.
“Normally vaccines for viruses are made from a weakened or inactive version of the virus. However, this vaccine is different. It’s using the mRNA technology or messenger RNA technology which is entirely made in the laboratory. There is not chance of being infected with the virus through the vaccine.”
Health officials said this could be another reason why you may want to consider wearing a mask or following other protocols we learned from COVID during the holidays. They said that can limit the spread of other illnesses like RSV and even the flu.
Learn more about the two trials here.