Respiratory Syncytial Virus

Dear Colleagues,

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of respiratory infections worldwide, with the most severe cases occurring in the very young and in elderly individuals. Infants and children having their first encounter with the virus are more likely to develop bronchiolitis and pneumonia, and even die. However, most deaths overall occur with infections of the elderly. In addition, immunocompromised individuals of any age are at greater risk of adverse outcomes.

RSV re-infection occurs throughout life, but subsequent infections are commonly less severe than the initial episode as a result of the immune response that is established after exposure to the virus. However, the immune response is not able to prevent clinical re-infection even in the absence of RSV strain variation. This aspect makes it important to delineate as much as possible the immune response and correlates of protection, and it also suggests that RSV candidate vaccines that are being developed may not and perhaps should not be expected to prevent clinical re-infection. Such candidate vaccines should render a first infection in the young person less severe, as are subsequent infections after a natural first encounter in childhood. Such vaccines may also be expected to boost potentially waning immunity in the elderly, used at intervals to promote patient survival with the natural RSV infection.

The aim of this Special Issue of Viruses is to contribute to the current knowledge regarding innate and adaptive immunity to RSV, the mechanisms used by the virus to accomplish re-infection, the populations at risk and epidemiology of the infection, treatment approaches directed at RSV or designed to counteract the suppression of immune responses by RSV, and approaches to vaccine development that are likely to benefit the host upon subsequent natural challenge. Research articles, review articles, as well as short communications are invited. Reports of promising candidate RSV vaccines and reports of RSV co-infections (such as with SARS-CoV-2) are encouraged.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts undergo a single-blind peer-review process. Papers belonging to a special issue are published online in the Viruses journal immediately after acceptance and collected together on the special issue webpage. This means that there is no delay for authors who submit their work. It will appear shortly after acceptance, even if other papers in the special issue are still being processed. The Article Processing Charge for publication in this open-access journal, Viruses (IF 5.048), is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs).

Dr. Norbert J. Roberts, Jr.
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Viruses is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.