Deaths from RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) in the UK

FOI reference: FOI-2023-1244

You asked

Can you tell me how many adults over the age of 60 have died from RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) in the UK from earliest records available to 2023 seperated by year ?

We said

Thank you for your request.

We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Therefore, we do not hold the requested data for the whole of the UK. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.

Our mortality data comes from the information collected at death registration. All the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). From all of these causes an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules.   

The underlying cause of death is defined by WHO as:  

a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or\ b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury  

The ICD-10 cause code for respiratory syncytial virus is J12.1.

The information you have requested from 2013 to 2021 is available as part of our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS webservice. 

Please see the associated download named 'Respiratory syncytial virus deaths 2013 to 2021' to view this information.

For more data prior to 2013, please use our Deaths registered in England and Wales – 21st century mortality and 20th Century Mortality Files.

NOMIS will be updated with 2022 data in the Autumn, once the data have been finalised. 

If you would like to obtain provisional 2022 or 2023 data prior to its publication on NOMIS, or data including contributory mentions, we can create a bespoke dataset for you. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data are available to order and are subject to disclosure control, legal frameworks, resources and agreement to costs under the ONS Charging policy.  

For further information please contact Health.data@ons.gov.uk.