US approves first RSV vaccine for use during pregnancy to protect babies
US regulators this week have approved the first RSV vaccine for pregnant women so their babies will be born with protection against the respiratory infection.
The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer’s maternal vaccination to guard against a severe case of RSV when babies are most vulnerable – from birth through six months of age.
The next step: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must issue recommendations for using the vaccine, named Abrysvo, during pregnancy.
“Maternal vaccination is an incredible way to protect the infants,” said Dr Elizabeth Schlaudecker of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, a researcher in Pfizer’s international study of the vaccine. If shots begin soon, “I do think we could see an impact for this RSV season.”
RSV is a coldlike nuisance for most healthy people but it can be life-threatening for the very young. It inflames babies’ tiny airways so it’s hard to breathe or causes pneumonia. In the US alone, between 58,000 and 80,000 children younger than five are hospitalised each year, and several hundred die, from the respiratory syncytial virus.
Source: The Guardian, 22 August 2023