Health authorities are urging parents to vaccinate their children following a spike in hospitalisations from respiratory syncytial virus RSV and flu. RSV, prevalent among young children during late autumn and winter, typically causes mild symptoms but can severely affect infants under 12 months.
RSV symptoms include a runny nose, cough, wheezing, difficulty breathing, fever, and bluish or greyish skin. This year, there have been 117,650 reported RSV cases nationwide, with the highest numbers in New South Wales, followed by Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia.
Reading Suggestion: Australia Faces Worst Whooping Cough Year Since 2016
Queensland’s Chief Health Officer reported that around 20 children are being hospitalised daily with the flu, a number expected to rise to 50 as children return to school. In NSW, influenza cases continue to climb across all age groups, especially among children aged 0 to 16 years. While RSV rates in NSW are stabilising after peaking in April, South Australia has about 125 hospitalised patients with flu or RSV, half of whom are children under five.
SA Health Chief Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier noted that flu cases are “skyrocketing,” likely exceeding numbers from the previous two years. Other viruses, such as whooping cough and mycoplasma pneumonia, are also on the rise, although COVID-19 cases are decreasing. “It is not too late to think about prevention. It is not too late to get a flu vaccine,” Spurrier emphasized.
Currently, only 22 percent of children aged six months to two years have received a flu vaccine, and just 65 percent of South Australians over 65 have been vaccinated. In South Australia, RSV passive immunisation is available only to children born prematurely or with existing health conditions. Spurrier expects an RSV vaccine to be available for pregnant women in SA next year, with broader availability for children anticipated in 2025.
Deanne Tingey’s seven-week-old daughter, Winter, recently contracted RSV, and her symptoms escalated rapidly, necessitating hospitalisation. “In the morning she was just sneezing a little bit and she sounded a little bit congested. Then she had gone completely off all of her feeds, and she’d had no wet nappies for the whole day,” Tingey recounted. Winter was immediately placed on oxygen and fed through a nasal gastric tube. After a week in the hospital, she was discharged on Thursday.
Reading Suggestion: Staying Engaged and Happy at Work Later in Life
Tingey urges parents to keep their sick children home from childcare to protect others from catching the virus. “I look at what happened to Winter and I don’t want that to happen to any baby at all,” she said. Professor Spurrier echoed this sentiment, advising adults to stay home from work if they are ill.
The increase in RSV and flu cases serves as a reminder of the importance of vaccinations and preventive measures to protect vulnerable populations, especially young children.
