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Oxford University Press - PMC COVID-19 Collection logoLink to Oxford University Press - PMC COVID-19 Collection
. 2022 May 7:jiac192. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiac192

Waning immunity against respiratory syncytial virus during the COVID-19 pandemic

Frederic Reicherz 1,2,, Rui Yang Xu 1,2, Bahaa Abu-Raya 1,2, Abdelilah Majdoubi 1,2, Christina Michalski 1,2, Liam Golding 1,3, Aleksandra Stojic 4, Marina Vineta 1,3, Madison Granoski 4, Zenon Cieslak 5, Anil Chacko 6, Neil Desai 2, Inna Sekirov 7,8, David J Marchant 4, Pascal M Lavoie 1,2,
PMCID: PMC9129162  PMID: 35524952

Abstract

Health jurisdictions have seen a near-disappearance of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over a corresponding period, we report a reduction in RSV antibody levels and neutralization in women and infants one year into the COVID-19 pandemic (February – June 2021) compared to earlier in the pandemic (May – June 2020), in British Columbia (BC), Canada. This supports that humoral immunity against RSV is relatively short-lived and its establishment in infants requires repeated viral exposure. Waned immunity in young children may explain the inter-seasonal resurgence of RSV cases in BC as seen also in other countries.

Keywords: Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Neutralizing antibody, Lower Respiratory Tract Infections, COVID-19 pandemic, Infants

Supplementary Material

jiac192_Supplementary_Data

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Supplementary Materials

jiac192_Supplementary_Data

Articles from The Journal of Infectious Diseases are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

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