Waning Immunity Against Respiratory Syncytial Virus During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic

Frederic Reicherz; Rui Yang Xu; Bahaa Abu-Raya; Abdelilah Majdoubi; Christina Michalski; Liam Golding; Aleksandra Stojic; Marina Vineta; Madison Granoski; Zenon Cieslak; Anil Chacko; Neil Desai; Inna Sekirov; David J Marchant; Pascal M Lavoie

doi:10.1093/infdis/jiac192

Waning Immunity Against Respiratory Syncytial Virus During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic

J Infect Dis. 2022 Dec 13;226(12):2064-2068. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiac192.

Authors

Frederic Reicherz^{1

2}, Rui Yang Xu^{1

2}, Bahaa Abu-Raya^{1

2}, Abdelilah Majdoubi^{1

2}, Christina Michalski^{1

2}, Liam Golding^{1

3}, Aleksandra Stojic⁴, Marina Vineta^{1

3}, Madison Granoski⁴, Zenon Cieslak⁵, Anil Chacko⁶, Neil Desai², Inna Sekirov^{7

8}, David J Marchant⁴, Pascal M Lavoie^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ British Columbia Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, Canada.
² Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
³ Reproductive and Developmental Sciences Program, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
⁴ Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
⁵ Department of Pediatrics, Royal Columbian Hospital, New Westminster, Canada.
⁶ Department of Pediatrics, Surrey Memorial Hospital, Surrey, Canada.
⁷ British Columbia Centre for Disease Control Public Health Laboratory, Vancouver, Canada.
⁸ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Abstract

Health jurisdictions have seen a near-disappearance of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during the first year of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Over this corresponding period, we report a reduction in RSV antibody levels and live virus neutralization in sera from women of childbearing age and infants between May to June 2020 and February to June 2021, in British Columbia (BC), Canada. This supports that antibody immunity against RSV is relatively short-lived and that maintaining optimal antibody levels in infants requires repeated maternal viral exposure. Waning immunity may explain the interseasonal resurgence of RSV cases observed in BC and other countries.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Infants; Lower Respiratory Tract Infections; Neutralizing antibody; Respiratory Syncytial Virus.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Antibodies, Neutralizing
Antibodies, Viral
British Columbia / epidemiology
COVID-19*
Female
Humans
Infant
Pandemics
Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infections* / epidemiology
Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccines*
Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Human*

Substances

Antibodies, Viral
Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccines
Antibodies, Neutralizing