EMA headquarters in Amsterdam Image: AFP
The EU medicines agency EMA has given the green light for the first vaccine against the so-called respiratory syncytial virus, which can be used in people over 60 years of age as well as in infants. That was announced on Friday.
The EU medicines agency EMA has given the green light for the first vaccine against the so-called respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which can be used in people over 60 years of age as well as in infants. As the EMA announced on Friday in Amsterdam, it is the Abrysvo vaccine from the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer. According to the EMA’s recommendation, the EU Commission still has to approve the approval.
Last month, an RSV vaccine from the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was approved in the EU, but only for people over 60 years of age.
‘Abrysvo is the first RSV vaccine for passive immunization of infants from birth up to six months of age after maternal administration of the vaccine during pregnancy,’ said EMA. The antibodies against RSV formed by the mother after the vaccination therefore reach the organism of the growing child via the placenta and protect it from the virus infection for up to six months after birth.
RSV is a global pathogen that usually causes only mild symptoms. However, it can cause severe respiratory diseases and become dangerous, especially in the elderly and people with a weakened immune system, but also in newborns and infants. The virus causes more than 270,000 hospitalizations and about 20,000 hospitalization-related deaths in people aged 60 and over in Europe every year, according to GSK.
After the corona pandemic subsided, severe respiratory diseases had increased significantly again in many countries around the world. In Germany, for example, more newborns and infants than usual had to be treated in clinics for acute respiratory diseases last winter. Experts suspect a catch-up effect after the corona pandemic, during which comparatively few children came into contact with RSV. So far, the disease can only be treated symptomatically.
Pfizer said the EMA recommendation is a “significant step forward in our efforts to prevent RSV disease in older adults and young children.” Babies are protected at exactly the age “when their risk of serious RSV disease and complications is highest”.
According to analysts, the RSV vaccine market could reach more than $10 billion in the next decade. Other manufacturers such as Moderna are also expected to launch RSV vaccines in the near future.
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