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Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) may trigger invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) in some children, but its role in doing so varies across pneumococcal serotypes, according to a recent study in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
The findings are based on three continuous French surveillance systems on IPD, pneumococcal carriage and RSV infections from 2008 to 2023. The analysis included children younger than 15 years old.
Pneumococcal nasopharyngeal colonization (the presence in the upper throat, behind the nasal cavity, of Streptococcus pneumoniae) is the first step to developing IPD. And respiratory infections can prompt the transition from pneumococcal colonization to invasive disease. The authors used surveillance data to determine serotype-specific involvement in IPD depending on RSV circulation.
Risk depends on serotype
A total of 4,574 IPD cases were included over the study period: 1,621 (35.4%) during the RSV season and 2,953 (64.6%) during the non-RSV season, with three serotypes (24F, 19A, and 1) accounting for more than 30% of all cases.
“The serotype distribution among IPD cases strongly varied depending on RSV circulation,” the authors found. Serotypes 1, 17F, 7F, 38, 8, and 12F had an odds ratio involvement in IPD depending on the RSV circulation period greater than 1, indicating their higher likelihood of occurrence, in proportion, during the non-RSV season.
“Overall, this serotype-specific association with RSV may have important clinical consequences, some low disease potential serotypes being more likely to induce an invasive disease during RSV epidemics,” the authors concluded. “These findings may also have important implications for RSV preventive strategies in early childhood.