Soon we may have a vaccine against the RS virus, which affects the very youngest children. Several vaccines are under development. 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. Something that could be in place in just a few months, according to vaccine researcher Matti Sällberg.
– Could come already this winter, he says to TV4 Nyheterna.
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.
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.