Vaccine reduces RSV cases among newborns, but flu cases on the rise
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There has been a "dramatic" decrease in cases of RSV among babies due to a new vaccine but flu is rising and expected to peak after Christmas, the interim chief medical officer said.
Usually one in two newborns get RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) with four in 100 admitted to hospital every winter in Ireland.
However Professor Mary Horgan said this pattern is changing. The antibody treatment Nirsevimab was introduced in August and parents are offered the chance to immunise newborns.
“There is RSV circulating, but thankfully the uptake of the new RSV immunisation in childhood has been very high,” she said.
“The good news is that we are seeing very few of those that got the vaccine in hospitals, so those infants (are showing) a dramatic decrease because of the effectiveness of the vaccine,” she said.
“Older children and some older adults are getting RSV and the two big viruses that we look at the moment in the winter which are circulating are RSV and influenza.”
Flu cases are now rising, she cautioned. “We anticipate that it is going to peak after Christmas,” Prof. Horgan said.
“So the really clear message is get vaccinated as soon as you can, particularly if you are in a risk group or caring for people at risk.
“You’ll appreciate that everyone wants to be healthy and stay healthy when Christmas comes, particularly when there’s that intergenerational mingling of children and people in older age groups.”
She advised that it is "much easier to do now, you can go to your GP, go to your pharmacist and it really will protect you".
Numbers of patients in hospital for any reason are rising with 592 people on Monday without a bed, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).
Prof. Horgan said, however, getting vaccinated against the flu can help people avoid this situation.
“It will prevent overcrowding in the hospitals which often happens after Christmas with the flu season in full swing,” she said.
The latest figures for covid-19 show 47 people in hospital up to November 23. Recorded case numbers, however, had dropped to just 129 compared to 538 in mid-September.
The interim CMO was speaking during the launch of the annual Healthy Ireland survey in Dublin. This showed 66% of the population have been infected with covid-19 since the pandemic began in early 2020.
The ongoing rise of infections are reflected in this figure which has risen from 59% last year. More than nine in 10 people who were sick said they returned to their usual health after infection.
However, while 80% of those said this took one month or less, 12% struggled for up to one year and 6% for up to two years. A further 2% said they were sick for two years or longer.
Some 7% of people who had covid-19 said they had symptoms of long covid in the first assessment of this condition for Ireland. This was reported most often among those aged 25 to 64 at 5% of people this age who caught covid.
Long covid is the continuation or development of new symptoms with more than 200 reported by the World Health Organisation.