‘Dozens of infants’ needing medical care as RSV, not flu, drives ‘unusual’ winter virus season

Thursday, 9 July 2026

Health experts say RSV, not influenza, is the dominant respiratory virus circulating this winter.

RSV sends about 2000 babies to hospital every year in New Zealand and can cause severe bronchiolitis and breathing difficulties.

Between January 1 and June 28, there were 742 laboratory-confirmed RSV cases, compared with 588 Covid-19 and 577 influenza cases.

Unlike Australia and the UK, New Zealand does not have a funded RSV prevention programme for pregnant women or all newborns.

What started as “just a regular cold” became a frightening trip to hospital for Nyree Thompson and her 3-year-old daughter.

Thompson initially monitored her daughter’s symptoms at home, unsure whether to seek care as after-hours services were facing long waits.

But when her daughter’s condition worsened, she took her to hospital where they spent hours seeking medical care.

Thompson said the experience highlighted how quickly winter respiratory illnesses can escalate.

“You don’t want to go in with ‘just a cold’, but it can turn nasty so quickly,” she said.

The Tauranga mother said many parents faced uncertainty about when to seek help, particularly during winter when healthcare services were under pressure.

Her experience comes as health experts reveal an “unusual” pattern of winter illness this year.

“This winter has been unusual because influenza is still a very late season. We haven’t seen the usual rise yet,” said Professor Michael Baker, from the University of Otago’s Department of Public Health.

Instead, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was more prominent, Baker said.

Latest data from the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science (formerly ESR) showed 742 RSV-positive specimens had been detected between January 1 and June 28, compared with 588 Covid-19 cases and 577 influenza cases.

The figures, Baker said, represented only lab-confirmed infections and underestimated the true number of cases.

He said about 2000 babies are admitted to hospital with RSV every year, almost 2% of the annual birth cohort.

‘Dozens’ in hospitals and child units with RSV

Associate Professor Emma Best, a paediatrician and infectious disease specialist, said it was much more common for RSV to cause hospitalisation and doctor’s visits for children, than influenza and Covid.

“At the moment, we’re seeing dozens of infants with RSV-type illness presenting across children’s health services around New Zealand, from children’s wards and emergency departments to primary care services,” Best said.

Babies with RSV could develop symptoms including rapid breathing, difficulty feeding, pauses while drinking milk and the chest wall moving up and down as they struggled to breathe, she said.

“They might have to take lots of pauses when they’re feeding because they can’t fix their breath.”

‘It can get very severe’

Best said most parents would remember a time that their child had bronchiolitis.

That’s a common infection caused by RSV that leads to difficulties breathing and primarily affects babies and very young children.

“It's not nice. It's awful seeing them [children] struggle to breathe,” said Best.

And there was no treatment for RSV, she said.

“In hospital we provide supportive care with oxygen and intravenous fluids while babies recover.”

University of Auckland associate professor Catherine Byrnes, a paediatric respiratory specialist at Starship Children’s Hospital and Kidz First Hospital, said every year a number of children end up in intensive care because of bronchiolitis.

“It can get very severe,” she said.

Brynes said one of the challenges with RSV was how quickly children could get very sick.

“Parents often notice a child has a cold during the day, and then they can deteriorate quite quickly, sometimes overnight, to the point where they require hospital care.”

Why New Zealand is still behind on prevention

Best said RSV is a predictable but “terrible illness” that doctors see every winter, but New Zealand is behind on prevention.

Unlike flu, she said, there is no funded prevention programme for pregnant people or babies.

Other countries, including Australia and the UK, use maternal RSV vaccination during pregnancy or antibody protection given to newborn babies to protect them through their first winter.

“As a child health specialist, this would make a huge difference to everyday work in winter.”

Byrnes said overseas experience showed prevention could significantly reduce hospital admissions.

“When they used preventative measures… in Western Australia, they reduced their admission rate by 80%,” she said.

Brynes said having RSV bronchiolitis early in childhood was associated with preschool wheeze, asthma and lung scarring such as bronchiectasis.

“If we could prevent the first disease, which is RSV, then there may be an option also of reducing later disease so prevention would be extremely cost-effective,” she said.

Otago University professor Tony Walls, a paediatric infectious diseases specialist, said New Zealand offers Palivizumab, an anti-RSV antibody treatment, to a small number of high-risk infants but it is very expensive and requires four to five injections over the winter.

“Hence only a small number of children across the country get this,” Walls said.

He said maternal vaccines and immunisations for babies at birth were under consideration by Pharmac.

Older adults also vulnerable

Baker said older adults were also more vulnerable to RSV.

“It’s biological, the immune system just doesn’t work as well,” he said.

Byrnes said RSV could cause pneumonia in older adults.

“If you have a hospitalisation when you’re over 65, you have an increased risk of becoming debilitated and highly likely to need additional care,” she said.

While an RSV vaccine for adults is available privately, experts say a cost of more than $400 makes it hard for everyone to access.