Next year we may have an additional weapon against the least known of viruses: respiratory syncytial virus, which can be threatening to infants and the elderly or at risk.
We are finally slowly emerging from this winter marked by a triple epidemic, Covid, flu and bronchiolitis. And next year we may have an additional weapon against the lesser known of the viruses involved: RSV, respiratory syncytial virus. Yet it is the first responsible for the terrible bronchiolitis in infants. The details of Géraldine Zamansky journalist at the Health Magazine on France 5.
franceinfo: To fight against this virus, promising results on two vaccines have just been published?
Geraldine Zamansky: Yes, and these two studies, on vaccines from GSK and Janssen, come shortly after other announcements from Pfizer and Moderna on vaccines against this RSV. To understand what is at stake in this intense research, let’s start by better presenting their “enemy”, this RSV which has managed to remain largely unknown to the general public, despite the number of its victims.
It must be said that this RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, often “hides” behind symptoms close to a cold, flu or bronchitis. But it can be very threatening for infants, it is the main virus responsible for bronchiolitis. The danger is also real for the elderly with serious, sometimes fatal forms. In fact, the immune defences, whether they are too new or too worn out, react less well to these two periods of life.
Where does the hope for a vaccine to strengthen these immune defenses come from?
Exactly, because today there is only antibody treatment, a kind of direct immune reinforcement, to be renewed every month, for fragile infants. No vaccine. But for the moment, the most advanced candidates, who could have American validation this year, are mainly aimed at the elderly.
Their efficacy rates are very promising, since they reduce the risk of severe complications, such as pneumonia, by at least 80%. One of the pioneers of RSV research at the University of Rochester, Professor Edward Walsh, who contributed to the Janssen trial, explained to me that participants continued to be followed three years after their injection. The hope, shared by the other laboratories, is to obtain protection long enough to avoid recalls every year.
As vigilance against the flu already leaves something to be desired, it would be better to avoid adding an annual vaccine!
This is exactly the concern expressed to me by Dr Benjamin Davido, infectious disease specialist at the Raymond Poincaré Hospital, in the Paris region. Every winter, his adult patients have never heard of this “bronchiolitis virus” which could affect them! So, if new vaccines against RSV really arrive, it will take a very innovative information campaign to succeed in convincing at least the most vulnerable to receive an additional injection.