CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) – This holiday season, a common respiratory virus is seeing high numbers of positive cases in the Palmetto State.

Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection, or more commonly known as RSV, can be serious in infants and older adults, sometimes requiring hospitalization, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

RSV infections cause about 2 million doctor visits, 80,000 hospitalizations and up to 300 deaths in children under five every year, the CDC says.

Numbers found by the CDC show positive cases in South Carolina as of Nov. 18 were over 12% positive compared to over 2% positive this same time last year and almost 4% in 2021.

“The last two years, we’ve had really bad RSV seasons,” MUSC Associate Professor of Pediatric Critical Care Whitney Marvin says. “It’s really overwhelming outpatient pediatricians, the emergency department and just beds in the hospital become incredibly tight with how many patients we’ve had, unfortunately, had to be admitted with RSV.”

Marvin says to most people RSV feels like the common cold but can be very dangerous to infants with any underlying medical problems.

She says for most people RSV will pass with time, but it’s not uncommon for infants to end up needing to be in the hospital to help with their breathing.

“It’s not uncommon for them (infants) to end up needing to be in the hospital to get help with their breathing, whether that’s just a little bit of extra oxygen, or even being on the ventilator at times,” Marvin says.

Marvin says a big hot topic in RSV is a vaccine that was approved by the FDA last spring, but unfortunately, supply is not meeting the demand right now.

“The CDC came out with new recommendations in October actually that make sure they send the vaccine at least in infants to those under six months of age and those that really have severe medical problems,” she says. “Most of the vaccines are being allotted to hospitals right now, and some pediatricians have it.”

Marvin says preventing RSV is similar to avoiding any cold by washing your hands and not going around people if you are sick.

“If RSV is on a door handle, and then you decide to touch the handle and then touch your mouth or your face, there’s a chance that you could get it that way,” she adds. “So really hygiene is the big one.”

People with babies especially need to be very careful about the number of people you are around.

“Think where you’re taking [babies], how many people they’re around, and everybody that’s kissing on them; just being very cognizant of that,” Marvin says.

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