They present a new form of passive immunization for infants and people over 60 years of age against respiratory infections caused by respiratory syncytial virus
A new vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), Abrysvo, from Pfizer, is now available for prescription in Spain.
This vaccine, which has been shown to reduce lower respiratory tract diseases caused by this pathogen, is indicated for the protection of infants under six months of age through the immunization of their mothers, and of the adult population from 60 years old.
At the moment the vaccine It is only funded in the case of pregnant women, and is awaiting the recommendations established by the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities for its incorporation into the vaccination schedules. In these decisions they will have to take into account the vaccine GSK for older people, Arexvy, and nirsevimab (Beyfortus), the monoclonal antibody of Sanofi for passive immunization of infants.
INFANTS
RSV, which during the pandemic was nicknamed the baby covid, is the leading cause of bronchiolitis and causes between 7,000 and 14,000 hospitalizations of infants in Spain annually.
Maria Garcesmember of the Vaccine Advisory Committee of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics, recalled that RSV infection lacks treatment and that thanks to support measures, such as oxygen therapy, it does not lead to the high mortality in Spain that it causes in developing regions. Not in vain, according to the expert, RSV is the second cause of death in children under one year of age in the world after malaria.
In any case, he warns, bronchiolitis symptoms in infants increase the risk of pneumonia in the short term and also predispose them to suffer asthma-like symptoms of bronchial hyperreactivity up to 5 years of age.
Abrysvo is a single-dose vaccine that, in the case of pregnant women, must be inoculated between weeks 24 and 36. For Garcés, who has described its availability as “very good news”, the whooping cough experience supports the strategy of maternal immunization to protect the baby from infectious diseases.
Likewise, he has indicated that there is already real-life data from its use in the United States that reveals “that it produces little reactogenicity in women, and in monitoring children it is also very safe.
ALSO FOR THE POPULATION OVER 60 YEARS OLD
Also in the case of adults, the vaccine has been approved for a single administration, although Pfizer is investigating whether they will be necessary. booster dose. “The first data show consistent protection results in the first two years: in the first, around 89%, and in the second, 79%,” he noted. Francisco Mesafrom the company’s Medical Department.
Older people are more vulnerable to infectious diseases due to immunosenescence and the greater presence of comorbidities, he recalled. Angel Gil, professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the Rey Juan Carlos University. In this sense, he has indicated that “as with the flu or covid, the RSV vaccine does not prevent the person from becoming infectedbut he did get hospitalized and die.”
In the case of the elderly, he explains that the virus presents a burden similar to the flu in primary care and hospitals, but “the lethality is slightly greater, probably because we do not diagnose in time and we do not think about it.” Specifically, RSV causes in Spain about 6,000 deaths annually, according to their estimates. “Its impact in terms of mortality and hospitalizations in the elderly is expected to be more than 95%.”
2024-02-01 00:11:38
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