![]() Studies show that HMPV causes as much misery in the US each year as the flu and a closely related virus, RSV. Instead, doctors care for seriously ill people by tending to their symptoms. Unlike Covid-19 and the flu, there’s no vaccine for HMPV or antiviral drugs to treat it. Sick people aren’t usually tested for it outside of a hospital or ER. Most people who caught it probably didn’t even know they had it, however. At its peak in mid-March, nearly 11% of tested specimens were positive for HMPV, a number that’s about 36% higher than the average, pre-pandemic seasonal peak of 7% test positivity. It filled hospital intensive care units with young children and seniors who are the most vulnerable to these infections. But just as it was winding down, a little-known virus that causes many of the same symptoms – a lower lung infection, hacking cough, runny nose, sore throat and fever – was just picking up steam.Ĭases of human metapneumovirus, or HMPV, spiked this spring, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s respiratory virus surveillance systems. The past winter was a heavy one for respiratory viruses, dominated by surges of RSV, influenza and Covid-19.
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