“RSV Infection in Babies Increases Risk of Asthma: Study from Vanderbilt University Medical Center”

RSV infection in babies significantly increases the likelihood of later developing asthma, a recent study shows. Read more here.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection has long been associated with the onset of wheezing in childhood, but the link between RSV infection and the onset of asthma remained unclear. That’s why researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center conducted a first-of-its-kind study and found that RSV infection in the first year of life significantly increases your risk of developing asthma later on.

The research results were published in the journal The Lancet.

RSV is a seasonal respiratory virus that affects almost all children by the age of 2 years. It is the main cause of bronchiolitis, a lower respiratory tract infection that presents as coughing and wheezing in infants and young children. Symptoms are mild in most children and usually resolve in about a week, but can lead to serious illness and death, especially in premature, low-birth-weight infants, and those with chronic lung disease or congenital heart disease.

It is the most common cause of hospitalizations worldwide for respiratory problems in the first year of life, according to Christian Rosas-Salazar, the study’s author.

According to the study, healthy full-term infants who did not become infected with RSV in the first year of life had a much reduced likelihood of later developing asthma.

“We focused on the first year of life because we believe that the first year is a very important period of lung and immune development. “We think that when a child is infected with RSV in the first year of life, when the lungs and immune system are still developing, that could lead to certain abnormalities that can later cause asthma,” said Rosas-Salazar.

The study (INSPIRE) involved 1,946 healthy infants (recruited from 11 pediatric practices) who were 6 months of age or younger at the start of the RSV season (November to March). Biweekly surveillance and serology tests were used to classify infants as infected or uninfected in the first year of life. 54% of infants were infected with RSV in the first year of life, 46% were not infected.

The children were assessed for asthma every year until the age of 5 years. The study found that babies who were not infected with RSV in the first year of life had a 26% lower risk of asthma at age 5.