The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the green light for a second vaccine to fight respiratory syncytial virus infection (RSV), with both aimed at protecting older people.
The newest Pfizer vaccine will also target people in the 60 and above age group, after the first one, by GSK, was green-lighted on 31 May, reports TIME.
RSV causes respiratory disease that can affect everyone, but elderly adults and babies typically experience the most severe illness.
Pfizer said its data showed the vaccine, called Abrysvo, was 85.7% effective at protecting people against severe RSV (diagnosed with three or more symptoms of lower respiratory tract disease) among people who received the vaccine compared with those getting the placebo.
By comparison, GSK’s vaccine was 82.6% effective overall in protecting against lower respiratory disease and 94.1% effective in reducing severe disease among vaccinated people vs those getting a placebo.
Pfizer’s vaccine, like the one from GSK, takes advantage of a scientific breakthrough made by scientists at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 2013, when Dr Barney Graham and his team discovered just the right form of the virus that would alert and activate the immune system to develop defences against RSV.
Stabilising and purifying that viral protein led to the successful vaccines.
Pfizer’s version contains two different strains of RSV in a bivalent shot to optimise the chances that the viruses causing disease are matched to those against which people are vaccinated.
Pfizer is also testing the same vaccine at the same dose in pregnant women, hoping they will pass along protective immunity to their developing babies.
Newborns would then be protected against RSV in the critical first six months of life, when they are most vulnerable to getting sick from the virus.
A committee of FDA vaccine experts voted unanimously on 18 May to recommend the maternal vaccine, and the FDA has until August to decide whether to follow that advice.
Immunisation experts from the Centres for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) will gather late this month to issue recommendations for both GSK’s and Pfizer’s vaccines for adults.
TIME article – FDA approves Pfizer’s RSV vaccine for older adults (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
FDA panel green-lights RSV pregnancy jab, but concerns persist
First RSV jab for adults approved by FDA
Significant drop in newborns’ RSV risk with vaccine for pregnant women