Naiara Brocal Madrid
Madrid
Updated Thursday, February 1, 2024-01:11
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
is only financed in the case of pregnant women
, and is pending 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
GSK
's vaccine
for older people,
Arexvy
, and nirsevimab (
Beyfortus ),
Sanofi
's monoclonal antibody
for passive immunization of infants.
INFANTS
RSV, which during the pandemic received the nickname
baby covid
, is the leading cause of bronchiolitis and causes between 7,000 and 14,000 hospitalizations of infants in Spain annually.
María Garcés
, member 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 reveal "that it produces
little reactogenicity
in women, and in the monitoring of 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
booster doses
will be necessary . "The first data show consistent protection results in the first two years: in the first, around 89%, and in the second, 79%," said
Francisco Mesa
, from the company's Medical Department.
Older people are more vulnerable to infectious diseases due to immunosenescence and the greater presence of comorbidities, recalled
Ángel 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 a person from becoming infected
, but it does prevent them from being hospitalized and dying."
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
around 6,000 deaths annually in Spain
, according to his estimates. "Its impact in terms of mortality and hospitalizations in the elderly is expected to be more than 95%."