An outbreak of human respiratory syncytial virus infection in the rural community of Zhejiang Province in 2023

Abstract

In May 2023, three patients from a village were admitted to the pediatric wards of the Second People's Hospital of Jinyun County due to human respiratory syncytial virus (human RSV) infections. One doctor notified this event to the local Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A joint provincial and municipal team was assembled to conduct field investigations. Here, we present an interlinked clinical, epidemiological, environmental, and virological investigation of this outbreak in a rural community and an urban hospital, as well as the public health response in Lishui City, China.

Keywords: ON1 genotype; family cluster; human respiratory syncytial virus (human RSV); nosocomial outbreak; pneumonia; village.

Figure 1.

The timeline of disease onset to hospital stays and results of RT-PCR testing for human RSV in the admitted cases, their bedside caregivers, and health care workers in the pediatric ward in the Second People’s Hospital of Jinyun County from April to May 2023.

Figure 2.

Spatial distribution of 18 admitted children (red, human RSV positive) infected with human RSV, seven other admitted cases in the same room (green, human RSV negative), and 11 bedside caregivers (gray, human RSV negative; red, human RSV positive) in the same room in the pediatric ward of the Second People’s Hospital of Jinyun County, from April to May 2023.