GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Corewell Health says they are dealing with a limited number of vaccines produced to prevent RSV in young children as the respiratory virus sees a seasonal surge.
Respiratory Syncytial Virus, or RSV, is what it sounds like — a virus that targets your respiratory system, producing symptoms such as coughing, congestion, fever and trouble breathing.
While adults can get the virus, it is young kids that medical professionals are most concerned about, particularly those under a year old.
“It's super important right now going into this holiday weekend to focus on how we can prevent the spread of RSV," Andrea Hadley, MD, division chief of Acute Care Pediatrics at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, said Tuesday.
"We are starting to see an increase in our volume of pediatric patients who are coming into our emergency departments, our urgent care.”
According to the CDC, RSV kills up to 300 children under the age of 5 every year.
There is a vaccine available for those children most vulnerable to the virus, though Corewell Health says supplies remain somewhat limited.
"There has been a shortage in our ability to order a high volume of doses of these medications at Corewell Health. We do have a very detailed plan with how we are going to distribute the doses that we have," Hadley said Tuesday. "We have reserved a specific number of doses for the highest-risk patients, so that they have access to that very effective treatment, and then we also have a number of doses that are available to otherwise healthy infants that are still at high risk because of their age."
She said Tuesday that they still do not know what their supply will look like in December.
"There are talks of increasing the supply; however, we don't have any details from the pharmaceutical company as far as what that will look like for us," she explained.
Pregnant women are also able to receive a preventative vaccine.
There is also what is called a monoclonal antibody treatment that can be administered to younger patients at risk.
Corewell encourages families to contact their primary pediatricians as soon as possible to go over their children's potential vulnerability to RSV and the potential for them to receive a vaccine.
