In the Covid era we have learned not to underestimate viruses, without exception. Surely not the respiratory syncytial virus, which this winter has put pressure on pediatric hospitals where hundreds of young patients have poured into conditions that are sometimes very serious. To date, there are no treatments for this infection, if not preventive for premature or particularly fragile babies. However, research is exploring different avenues to try to mitigate the danger of this virus, which causes infections of the lower airways on which other bacterial ones are often grafted. Hence the use of antibiotics, unfortunately sometimes ineffective due to the so-called antibiotic resistance, a phenomenon linked to their excessive use. Seeking solutions to resistance to these drugs thanks to vaccines is the goal of the Arvac consortium, formed by the University of California at Berkeley, Novavax, Princeton University and Center For Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP), which conducted a study for understand if vaccination against syncytial virus in pregnant women can serve the purpose. And the results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that this is a winning strategy: infants from vaccinated mothers received fewer prescriptions for antibiotics in the 3 months after birth than babies whose mothers had received placebo.
A shield against the respiratory syncytial virus
by Mara Magistroni
The efficacy of the vaccine was determined precisely by looking at the antibiotic recipes that were made to the children in the 3 months after birth and then up to the end of the follow-up, at 1 year of life: that is, we looked at the reduction of the need for medicines to treat lower respiratory tract infections or other infections, for example ear infections. In the first 90 days the vaccine efficacy was 12.9% considering all new prescriptions and 16.6% if only those associated with lower respiratory tract infections are considered. The drugs that suffered the greatest reduction were cephalosporins (28% fewer prescriptions in the first 90 days of the baby’s life) and aminoglycosides (25.3% fewer prescriptions).
Respiratory syncytial disease, the virus is still circulating
by Dario Rubino
Important results, but not enough to speak of a real success, as the study authors themselves point out. However, it is a demonstration of the effectiveness of the strategy used. “In light of the decrease in bacterial pneumonia following the introduction of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, a syncytial virus vaccine is one of the best investments to decrease the burden of respiratory infections in children,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the CDDEP. “Our results, which show how developing and introducing a vaccine against this virus also substantially helps in the fight against antibiotic resistance, make the need to invest in research and development in this sector even more urgent.”