The Food and Drug Administration approved the world’s first respiratory syncytial virus vaccine by pharmaceutical giant GSK. The RSV vaccine lowers respiratory illness in adults 60 and older. LSU Health New Orleans Infectious Disease Expert Dr. Fred Lopez says having this before the next RSV season coming in late fall and winter is significant.
“Now we potentially have another vaccine in our armamentarium to prevent respiratory illnesses that can be quite severe resulting sometimes in even death so this is a really important advancement.”
For older adults with underlying medical conditions like asthma, emphysema, and heart failure, complications from RSV infection can potentially be life-threatening. RSV hospitalizations for the current season were around 51 per 100,000 people, according to the CDC. Lopez says the vaccine looks promising to lower the risk of symptomatic illness.
“The ability of the vaccine to reduce the risk of lower respiratory tract disease by 82.6% and reducing the risk of severe RSV was 94%.”
Lopez says the CDC must still recommend the vaccine before it becomes available to the public.
“So the company’s going to continue to monitor this and we’ll just have to wait and see but so far it seems safe enough and effective enough for the FDA to approve it.”
RSV kills up to 10,000 people ages 65 or older and up to 300 children under 5 every year in the U.S. The CDC’s final recommendation on who will get the vaccine will come in June.
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