Because most respiratory infections occur mainly in the winter, the data are presented for a respiratory season or a respiratory year. A respiratory year runs from week 40 of one year through week 39 of the following year. A respiratory season runs from week 40 of one year through week 20 of the following year. On this page, the data for 2024/2025 are limited to the respiratory season. More background information about the different surveillance sources can be found in the document ‘Background and methods of the respiratory surveillance 2024/2025’.
Timing of RS-virus peak similar to before the pandemic
In all available sources about RS-virus, a peak was seen around the turn of the year. The timing of this peak is similar to the peaks of RS-virus before the COVID-19 pandemic.
RS-virus in laboratories participating in virological laboratory surveillance
Based on the number of times that RS-virus was detected by laboratories reporting to the virological laboratory surveillance, the RS-virus season 2024/2025 started in week 46 of 2024. This number peaked in week 1 of 2025. The timing of this peak was similar to the peak in the respiratory season 2022/2023 and in the seasons before the COVID-19 pandemic (2014/2015 through 2018/2019). In the respiratory season 2023/2024, the peak had been relatively early, in week 48.
After the peak in week 1 of 2025, the number of RS-virus detections gradually decreased and returned to baseline from week 16 onwards. Due to changes in testing policy for patients with acute respiratory infections since the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to interpret comparisons between seasons regarding the absolute number of RS-virus positive tests with caution. The changes in testing policy affect the indicators that describe the start, intensity, and end of the RS-virus season.
Since the respiratory season 2023/2024, about half of the reporting laboratories also report the number of tests performed in addition to the number of positive test results. As a result, the percentage of specimens that are positive for RS-virus can now also be described. From week 44 of 2024, the percentage of specimens positive for RS-virus in the virological laboratory surveillance increased. This reached a peak in weeks 51 and 52, when more than 13% of the specimens were positive for RS-virus. After this peak, the percentage dropped to around 4% in weeks 8 to 13 of 2025, and to less than 1% in weeks 19 and 20.
RS-virus at the general practitioner
The percentage of RS-virus positive specimens, collected in the GP sentinel surveillance from patients with an acute respiratory infection (ARI), peaked in week 52 of 2024 (28% of specimens positive) and remained around 10% up to and including week 9 of 2025. The percentage of RS-virus positive specimens was highest among children aged 0-1 years (47%), followed by the age group 2-4 years (17%), 5-14 years (13%), 65 years and older (11%), 45-64 years (9%), and 15-44 years (3%). In the GP sentinel surveillance, RS-virus type B was more common than RS-virus type A in all age groups throughout the 2024/2025 respiratory season. The number of young children visiting the GP with bronchiolitis followed the same pattern as the RS-virus specific sources and peaked in week 51 of 2024.
RS-virus in Infectieradar
The highest percentages (between about 4% and 8%) for RS-virus infections among people with an ARI in the Infectieradar self-test study were found between week 50 of 2024 and week 10 of 2025. The highest percentage was in week 3 of 2025 (almost 8%). It should be noted that children are strongly underrepresented in Infectieradar. Among children, the percentage of RSV positivity is probably higher. Just as in the GP sentinel surveillance, RS-virus type B was dominant in all age groups and in almost all weeks of this respiratory season in Infectieradar in 2024/2025.
Table 1. RS-virus indicators (start, intensity, and peak) based on virological laboratory surveillance for the period 2015/2016 - 2024/2025 (up to and including week 20). (Source: Virological laboratory surveillance, RIVM)
| Respiratory season | Onset week | Duration RSV-season (N weeks) | Above medium intensity level (N weeks) | Above high intensity level (N weeks) | Above very high intensity level (N weeks) | Timing of peak (week number-year) | Number of detections in peak week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015/2016 | 48 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4-2016 | 114 |
| 2016/2017 | 45 | 16 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 52-2016 | 199 |
| 2017/2018 | 46 | 19 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1-2018 | 192 |
| 2018/2019 | 47 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1-2019 | 186 |
| 2019/2020 | 46 | 19 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2-2020 | 170 |
| 2020/2021 | 23* | Continued into 2021/2022 | Summer peak: 6 | 2 | 2 | 29-2021 | 254 |
| 2021/2022 | RSV-season started in 2020/2021 | 64 | Winter peak: 0 | Winter peak: 0 | Winter peak: 0 | 47-2021 | 120 |
Summer peak: 1 | Summer peak: 0 | Summer peak: 0 | 23-2022 | 154 | |||
| 2022/2023 | 39 | 26 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 52-2022 | 560 |
| 2023/2024 | 39 | 22 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 48-2023 | 448 |
| 2024/2025 | 46 | 22 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 1-2025 | 461 |
*Week 23 of 2021
Footnote:
- Date of data extraction: June 5, 2025
- Week number refers to the week of laboratory diagnosis reporting
- Thresholds for the start and end of the epidemic period and for intensity are defined by the Moving Epidemic Method (MEM) based on reported detections from virological laboratory surveillance. The MEM epidemic and intensity thresholds (Lozano 2018) for the seasons up to and including 2016/2017 were calculated using data from the 2005/2006 to 2016/2017 seasons (Vos, Teirlinck et al. 2019). The thresholds for the 2017/2018 to 2020/2021 seasons were calculated separately for each season based on the preceding ten seasons. Due to the abnormal data during the COVID-19 pandemic, thresholds for the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 seasons (in grey) were set at the same values as in the 2020/2021 season. For the 2024/2025 season, the MEM thresholds were calculated based on five seasons: 2016/2017, 2017/2018, 2018/2019, 2022/2023, and 2023/2024.
- Due to changes in testing policy for patients with acute respiratory infections since the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to interpret comparisons of the number of RS-virus positive tests between seasons with caution. This also applies to the indicators describing the start, intensity, and end of the RS-virus season.
Fig 1 RSV vir wk
Skip chart Figure 1. Weekly number of RS-virus detections reported in virological laboratory surveillance, from week 40 of 2020 through week 20 of 2025. (Source: Virological laboratory surveillance, RIVM) and go to datatableNote: This data is owned by the laboratories participating in virological laboratory surveillance, represented by the board of the Dutch Working Group for Clinical Virology (NWKV). The database management is handled by RIVM. Further use of this data is not allowed without permission. Permission to use this data can be requested by contacting virweekstaten@rivm.nl.
Fig 2 RSV vir wk perc
Skip chart Figure 2. Weekly percentage of specimens testing positive for RS-virus, reported in virological laboratory surveillance, from week 40 of 2023 through week 20 of 2025. (Source: Virological laboratory surveillance, RIVM) and go to datatableNote: This data is owned by the laboratories participating in virological laboratory surveillance, represented by the board of the Dutch Working Group for Clinical Virology (NWKV). The database management is handled by RIVM. Further use of this data is not allowed without permission. Permission to use this data can be requested by contacting virweekstaten@rivm.nl.