Doctor Helen Chu (photo courtesy of the University of Washington)
We’re already in an early and severe RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) season with a similar flu season likely to follow, according to a local expert.
Flu season came early and spiked hard in Australia and New Zealand, and University of Washington infectious disease specialist, Doctor Helen Chu, says with flu already hitting parts of the eastern US hard, it’ll probably do the same here with so many of us avoiding flu for 2 years. “The amount of population immunity, so the amount that we can be protected from other people being immune, that’s really gone down” Chu says, “so the chances of it spreading very quickly is very high.”
Anyone can get RSV, but it tends to have the worst effects in children and older adults, starting with a runny nose and cough, migrating quickly to the lungs. That’s why Seattle and Mary Bridge Children’s Hospitals are seeing so many cases in young kids, where Chu says they struggle so hard to breathe they end up on oxygen and in the ICU. With RSV, Doctor Chu says testing is key because it’s hard to tell it from the flu, and she’s among those worried flu, COVID and RSV cases will overwhelm hospitals, but she says we can do what we’ve learned with COVID to slow RSV spread. Chu says, “Masking when sick, distancing when sick, staying home when sick, washing your hands, cleaning surfaces – those are the same things that will slow the spread of RSV just like they did for flu and for COVID.”
The good news, Chu says, is this year’s flu shot seems to match what’s going around, but she says the time to get it is NOW to be fully protected by the time flu goes full tilt here in the Northwest. There is no vaccine for RSV yet, but Doctor Chu says it’s a work in progress, including some using MRNA technology, adenovirus and protein like the COVID shots, so she expects an RSV shot will be available in the next couple of years.
You can learn much more from infectious disease specialist Dr. Helen Chu in her complete interview with Northwest Newsradio’s Ryan Harris in the video below:
