Speaker
Description
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is a single-stranded RNA virus that most people encounter as children. RSV infection generally manifests with mild, cold-like symptoms, but can cause severe complications in immunocompromised populations such as infants, the elderly, and immunosuppressed transplant patients. These
Despite its global impact, epidemiological surveillance of RSV in Switzerland has historically been limited compared to other countries. The recent introduction of RSV vaccines for adults in Switzerland, such as Arexvy and monoclonal antibodies for children, specifically Nirsevimab, has made understanding the molecular epidemiology of RSV increasingly crucial. Immunocompromised patients are also prone to chronic infections lasting weeks or months. The importance of such intra-host viral evolution under therapeutic and immune pressures is well appreciated for other viruses like SARS-CoV-2 and it is crucial to characterize it for RSV.
Therefore, this study addresses two complementary goals: analyzing RSV epidemiological trends in Switzerland during the 2022-2024 winter seasons and investigating intra-host evolution using longitudinal samples from chronically infected individuals.
Initial findings on lineage distribution and seasonal prevalence showed that circulation in Switzerland generally matches that of neighboring countries in terms of RSV subtype and clade distribution. In chronic infections prior to the roll-out of specific therapeutics, within-host diversity is low and we find little evidence of viral adaptation. Forthcoming data will allow to compare these patterns to those found in patients treated with monoclonal antibodies and vaccines.
We hope that these results will help to inform public health strategies and the roll-out of therapeutic implementations. The code used for genome assembly, phylogeny reconstruction, and intra-host evolution analysis is freely available on GitHub: https://github.com/neherlab/rsv_intrahost_2024
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