Facts: Some vaccine candidates against RS virus
Pfizer:
The company is developing a vaccine for the elderly and a vaccine for younger children where the mother-to-be receives the vaccine. In a phase 3 study from early November this year, protection against serious illness was 81.8 percent during the child’s first three months after the woman was vaccinated while pregnant. After that, protection dropped to just under 70 percent until the child was six months old.
GSK:
The company is testing a vaccine for people over 60. A phase 3 study from October this year showed that the vaccine was 82.6 percent effective against RS virus infection. Blekinge University of Technology (BTH) is involved in the work with GSK’s virus candidate.
Some other pharmaceutical companies testing vaccine candidates against RS virus are: Janssen, Moderna, Merck and Bavarian Nordic.
“It would mean a lot for the children and for the care,” says Johanna Rubin at the Public Health Agency.
Last year’s RS season was unusually early and unusually tough. A total of 244 people received intensive care in Sweden. This year’s season has only just begun.
At the same time, intensive work is currently underway to develop a vaccine against the virus.
Although deaths are very rare in Sweden, relatively many young children need hospital care each year.
New drug approved
Today, there is a drug against the RS virus that is only given to children in certain risk groups in Sweden. It is an expensive antibody treatment that must be given once a month to be effective.
At the beginning of November this year, however, the European Commission approved a new antibody treatment from Astra Zeneca and Sanofi, which should be able to be given to a wider group of babies in a single dose before the RS season.
In addition, a number of vaccines against the virus are currently being tested. Several of them target the elderly, who are also at risk of serious illness.
Johanna Rubin, pediatrician and investigator at the Public Health Agency. Given to pregnant women
The pharmaceutical company Pfizer is developing a vaccine that should provide protection to newborns.
The vaccine is given to the expectant mother when she is pregnant. The child is then born with antibodies. It works in the same way as the vaccine against whooping cough, which as recently as last summer was recommended to pregnant women in Sweden.
In Pfizer’s phase three study, which is the last study before possible approval, the child received 82 percent protection during the first three months of life if the mother was vaccinated. After that, the protection dropped.
Johanna Rubin is an investigator at the Public Health Agency and a pediatrician herself.
— Pediatricians in general have really been waiting for a product against RS virus infection. Almost half the wards in hospitals can be full of children with RS during the winter. It would be great news if there was a vaccine, she says.
Johanna Rubin does not think that a vaccine against the RS virus is that far off.
— The development of RS virus preparations is a priority. But it will probably take at least a couple of years, she says.