Whether you are a caregiver for calves or children, your top goals are to keep them safe, growing and healthy. Unfortunately, the bugs that cause respiratory and digestive issues seem to be even more prevalent in calf barns and day care centers, elevating the risk for disease. While the common cold is pretty, well, common, some respiratory diseases pose a more serious threat.

For both calves and humans, one such illness is respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. This disease often moves from the throat and nose into the lower respiratory tract, making it a leading cause of pneumonia and bronchiolitis. In humans, RSV is especially dangerous for premature infants, the elderly and adults with compromised immune systems.

There are no preventative vaccines or therapeutic drugs for RSV available on the market right now, but that may soon change. A recent calf study conducted by the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine revealed some valuable information needed to move a prospective treatment into human trials.

In the study, an experimental antiviral compound was administered to calves. This compound was effective in blocking the virus from binding with the animals' cell membranes, which lessened the level of infection in the treated calves. The air spaces in the lungs of treated calves were also less likely to fill with inflammatory cells produced by the infection than were the lungs of untreated animals.

Since bovine RSV is almost identical to the human form of the disease, calves have been very useful research models for studying the disease. The company that developed the cattle version of the antiviral drug and funded the research has now moved on to clinical trials in humans. Hopefully this means that, in the future, there will be a treatment commercially available to keep RSV in control in both humans and their bovines.