Don’t Miss Out: RSV Vaccine Proves Highly Effective for Seniors!

Don’t Miss Out: RSV Vaccine Proves Highly Effective for Seniors!
Don’t Miss Out: RSV Vaccine Proves Highly Effective for Seniors!

United States: A new study which is already published in ‘The Lancet’ looked at how well the RSV vaccine works. RSV stands for respiratory syncytial virus. Researchers from the VISION Network found that this vaccine was honestly very effective for older adults, even those with weakened immune systems. This was during the 2023–24 respiratory disease season, which was the first season the RSV vaccine was approved in the U.S.

As reported by Medicalxpress, for severe disease and hospitalization, ICU admission, and RSV-related death, RSV vaccination was about 80% effective Among vaccinated emergency department visitors aged 60 and older but had not been hospitalized, vaccination offered similar protection against less severe disease. Among this population, those 75 years of age and older were most at risk of developing severe disease and were also the most likely to be hospitalized.

The study involved the CDC and geographically dispersed US health care systems and research laboratories and centers with linked medical-records data, laboratory records, and vaccination records of the CDC VISION Network.

In contrast to this data study, clinical trials for the RSV vaccine were designed and powered insufficiently to provide estimates of the efficacy of the vaccines against severe disease that might require hospitalization. By filling this gap in the existing evidence base, we were able to harness the utility of big data to estimate RSV vaccine effectiveness – data that were critical to informing vaccine policy, said Dr. Shaun Grannis of Regenstrief Institute.

As a data scientist and a family practice physician, I am urging older adults to follow the CDC advice and get vaccinated for RSV as we head into respiratory disease season 2021 and every year thereafter.

Dr. Grannis is VP for data & analytics At the Regenstrief Institute and a Professor of Family Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Respiratory disease season which, for example, starts in the late September or the early October and lasts until March, or early April in the United States.

RSV is a virus that attacks the nasal passages, trachea and lungs and is responsible for considerable sickness and mortality among elders during these periods of epidemic. Before the development of an RSV vaccine, the CDC identified between 60,000 to 160,000 hospitalizations, and between 6,000 to 10,000 deaths as a result of RSV, in adults aged 65 and above, in the United States each year.