New survey data indicates emergency room and critical care physicians in the U.S. are seeing more patients with respiratory syncytial virus, and that cases are more severe than in previous years.
The findings are based on a microsurvey completed by 100 physicians via a mobile platform from InCrowd. The data was sourced on Nov. 7 and aims to track RSV case growth and severity-level changes. InCrowd conducted the first wave of the survey two weeks earlier, on Oct. 24.
Four findings from the data:
1. Ninety percent of ER and critical care physician respondents said they have treated RSV patients in the last two weeks, up from 81 percent who said the same in the survey's first wave Oct. 24.
2. The data also indicate case loads are on the rise, with physicians treating an average of 18 RSV patients in the last two weeks. That is up from an average of 11 cases when data was first sourced.
3. Sixty percent of respondents in the latest survey said the RSV cases they are seeing are more severe than in previous years, up from 45 percent who said the same Oct. 24.
4. Only 12 percent of respondents in the latest wave of the survey said there was no change in RSV case numbers over the last two weeks. Forty-four percent characterized the increase as "strong," and 43 percent indicated there was an increase of some degree.
"Data continue to align with the CDC's RSV-Net surveillance of RSV-associated hospitalizations, which also showed a net increase during the same two-week period," Apollo Intelligence, which owns the InCrowd platform, said in a Nov. 22 news release.