Seasonal shift in epidemics of respiratory syncytial virus infection in Japan

In Japan, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection generally has occurred during autumn and winter. However, a possible change in the seasonal trend of RSV infection has been observed recently. The current study was conducted to determine whether the epidemic season of RSV infection in Japan has indeed changed significantly. We used expectation-based Poisson scan statistics to detect periods with high weekly reported RSV cases (epidemic cluster), and the epidemic clusters were detected between September and December in the 2012–2016 seasons while those were detected between July and October in the 2017–2019 seasons. Non-linear and linear ordinary least squares regression models were built to evaluate whether there is a difference in year trend in the epidemic seasonality, and the epidemic season was shifted to earlier in the year in 2017–2019 compared to that in 2012–2016. Although the reason for the shift is unclear, this information may help in clinical practice and public health.