C.with his pungent and ingenious irony Checco Zalone, dressing i the shoes of a virologist cousin of Albano told Amadeus, on the stage of Sanremo “I want to say to all the young people who undertake difficult careers (…) don’t worry, sooner or later Fabio Fazio will call you as well!” making fun of the great media exposure that virologists have had in these pandemic years. But, to be honest, the virology has become a topic of daily discussion and within everyone’s reach. As well as i covid test have entered the basket of assets taken into consideration by theISTAT to calculate inflation, likewise, Specialty medical topics such as virology, immunology and epidemiology have become topics of conversation in barsat the hairdresser and on the tables during lunches and dinners.
If the cause of all this is a pandemic that represents a real drama for humanity due to the many victims it has done and is continuing to do, it is equally true that the entry of virology into common discussions could represent an opportunity for learn something more, to discover the incredible world of microbiology and to provide us greater awareness of the many pathogens that threaten our health.
Yet, in the last two years he alone has ruled the debate: SARS-CoV-2, as if other viruses, bacteria and various microbes did not exist. Only for a short time was public attention focused on another virus, we were a end of October 2021 and Italy began to worry about one “New pandemic affecting newborns”. In reality there was nothing again, but the topic became “trendy” because the little girl of Fedez and Chiara Ferragni had fallen ill due to the respiratory syncytial virus.
After the Ferragnez appeal, many mothers and fathers said they had or have had similar experiences with their children in the past. So let’s get to know this virus a little better and what it teaches us about how our lungs work.
Let’s start from the beginning, the illness that hit the little Ferragnez family follows an hRSV infection, for friends: respiratory syncytial virus. It is a virus well known in the scientific environment and also in many families, in fact it causes infections in the respiratory tract of patients of any age, although it mainly affects the children in the first years of life. Generally manifests itself as a coldbut in some cases and especially in children in the first months of life it can cause a bronchiolitis acute e pneumonia.
“The situation is starting to be quite serious: these days we have a large crowding of children with bronchiolitis, the ward is almost full and we have 3 children in intensive care, intubated precisely for respiratory syncytial virus (vrs) bronchiolitis”, he explained in that period to the microphones of RaiNews24 Fabio Medulla, the head of the pediatric emergency room at the Policlinico Umberto I in Rome and president of the Italian Society for Childhood Respiratory Diseases (Simri).
But how is it transmitted? The Respiratory syncytial virus is very adept at spreading from person to person. The infection is contracted when it comes into contact with our mucous membranes (mainly nose, mouth and eyes), as we have already learned for Covid, an infected person emits viral particles through droplets but also through aerosols, these are inhaled or directly affect the mucous membranes. The VRS can survive for many hours on hard surfaces such as tables, doorknobs, toys and cribs.
There lack of respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. Unfortunately we do not have a vaccine, and even on this issue there is a lot of misinformation, in fact, when I talked about it on my social profiles at the end of October, many mothers who had had a premature birth replied that their child had been vaccinated and I was wrong. It didn’t happen that way. Unfortunately, the vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus does not exist, and what is administered to premature births is a prophylaxis that is done with monoclonal antibodies: these antibodies are administered to the baby to protect him in the periods in which he is more fragile, but the enormous difference between a vaccine and the administration of antibodies is that they do not develop immune memory. For this reason, the little one, when the antibodies disappear, will be discovered and his immune system will not have learned to defend itself from the virus. Here because it would be extremely important and useful to have a vaccine. But unfortunately we don’t have it. What can we do? Not much, but a good start would be do not send sick children to school. And talk about it and raise awareness of infectious diseases.
Photo Matteo Rasero / LaPresse
Finally, a little curiosity: one might wonder why bronchiolitis are so frightening in newborns, and in particular in premature babies and are less frightening as they age. We find a possible answer by discovering how our lungs work. Our respiratory system is like a tree that branches out more and more, the bronchioles divide into alveolar ducts which are well vascularized by a dense network of capillaries. We are in a wonderful area of our body: the one that manages to take oxygen from the air and transfer it to the blood!
The air we breathe is humid, so it contains a percentage of water, when these water molecules are in our lungs, at the level of the alveoli, they form an attraction field that tends to collapse the walls of the alveoli. A bit like they implode. But our body knows how to react: le Type 2 cells are responsible for producing a substance called a surfactant which reduces the force of attraction between the water molecules and therefore helps the alveoli to remain fully functional.
The problem in newborns is that the smaller the alveoli are, the greater the tendency of the walls to collapse and in premature babies type 2 cells may have less activation and therefore less ability to prevent it. That’s why i newborns and premature babies are considered particularly fragile for infections of this respiratory tract.
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