RESCEU

The RESCEU project has put together the most comprehensive cache of evidence to date on the true burden of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a disease that still claims millions of mostly infant victims every year. ###In an interview with the IMI Programme Office, project coordinator Harish Nair of the University of Edinburgh talks about the project’s recent supplement published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, which he says represents an important source of evidence for policy makers.

‘The publications from RESCEU are certainly the most comprehensive evidence that has been put together in recent times that present the burden of disease of RSV,’ he says. The data gathered includes the first local estimates of RSV-associated acute respiratory infections in older adults; the first global estimates of the economic burden of RSV in children under five; estimates of the RSV-related hospitalisation burden in children under five in seven European countries, and the first estimates of the risk period for death in children under five after RSV illness.

‘This is the beginning of the process to generate evidence to influence policy specifically for the EU,’ explains Professor Nair. The team has been working with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and (ECDC) national public health agencies to develop guidance on RSV surveillance at country level, which would be required prior to the introduction of RSV immunisation.

Find out more

• Read the article in full