RS Virus outbreak in The Netherlands

​There has been much attention on the news about the outbreak of the RS virus in the Netherland, which is endangering lives of many babies. Children’s hospitals and their intensive care units are overcrowded at the moment. The children's ICs are faced with a massive influx of patients due to the outbreak. For this reason, children were even forced to be treated in hospitals abroad

The virus is characterized by being "a frequent guest around Christmas".  During this period the IC units for children are full with babies suffering from pneumonia by the RS virus. Especially for children under the age of 2 years, the virus can be quite stressful. They experience difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, diarrhoea and vomiting. For children under the age of three months, the virus can be life-threatening. Louis Bont, charmain of ReSViNET was interviewed by the Dutch news channel RTL about the current outbreak in the Netherlands.
 
To this date, no vaccine against this virus had been developed. We are all working very hard to change that. This outbreak shows the importantance of the ReSViNET and its collaboration with various pharmaceutical companies, policy makers, physicians and researchers all around the world.