Photo Credit: Chan2545

RSV contributes to a substantial part of the economic burden associated with cardiorespiratory hospitalizations among US adults, according to findings published in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics. Parinaz Ghaswalla, PhD, and colleagues analyzed the annual economic burden of RSV-associated cardiorespiratory hospitalizations in insured US adults from September through August in 2017 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019. In 2017 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019, respectively, 18.5 million and 16.4 million adults with commercial or Medicare supplemental benefits were evaluated. The researchers identified 301,248 cardiorespiratory hospitalizations in 2017–2018; 0.32% had RSV-specific ICD codes, costing $44.9 million, and 5.52% were RSV-related cardiorespiratory hospitalizations, costing $734 million (95% CI, $4.6 million to $1.1 billion). From 2018 to 2019, 215,525 cardiorespiratory hospitalizations were reported; 0.34% had RSV-specific ICD codes totaling $33 million, and 3.14% were RSV-associated cardiorespiratory hospitalizations, costing $287 million. “Modeling excess risk using viral positivity data provides a comprehensive estimation of RSV hospitalization burden and associated costs compared with relying on ICD diagnosis codes alone,” Dr. Ghaswalla and colleagues wrote.