Introduction: Respiratory syncytial virus is one of the most important causes of viral infections in the first year of children's life and the main cause of their hospitalization. It causes annual epidemics of respiratory infections in late autumn, winter and early spring. Most primary infections in children are symptomatic. In the fall of 2006, laboratory monitoring of RSV in all age groups was established in Slovenia. There is no effective treatment for RSV infections. In addition to prevention, which is used to limit the spread of the virus, passive immunization using palivizumab is also available for at-risk groups. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to determine the incidence of RSV infections in Slovenia based on available research and existing data. In addition, our goal is to educate a professional and lay group of people about the virus and to draw attention to the possibility of immunoprophylactic protection with palivizumab. Work methods: In the theoretical work, we used a descriptive work method with a review of domestic and foreign professional literature. With this, we presented the key features of RSV infection and emphasized the prevention of infections. We obtained information with the help of the World Wide Web and databases such as Cobiss, MedLine, PubMed, ScienceDirect and through the digital library of the University of Ljubljana. Results: Over a ten-year period (from week 40, 2010 to week 15, 2020), 120,492 patients were tested for RSV and 12,128 (10 %) of these tested positive. The number of tested samples in the 2010/2011 season increased from 5,058 to 18,687 in the 2019/2020 season. The percentage of RSV positives decreased from 22 % to 6.75 % during this period. Over a ten-year period, 2,160 children were placed on the list to receive palivizumab to prevent severe RSV infections. During these years, the most children received protection in the 2011/2012 season. Discussion and conclusion: Regular and accurate collection of epidemiological data would help to better understand the spread of the disease and thus propose measures to prevent it. If we had sufficiently reliable data, we could more precisely determine the start of palivizumab application. RSV infections are expected to decrease over the years. The introduction of palivizumab in the highest risk groups may also have contributed to this. Since immunoprophylaxis with palivizumab was introduced not long ago, there are very few studies that could confirm the positive impact. It would be desirable for experts in this field to educate people, especially parents. It would also be necessary to educate healthcare workers and inform the entire population about the consequences of RSV. Until experts develop other measures to prevent RSV infections, palivizumab immunoprophylaxis is the only available RSV prevention.
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