HQ Team
September 23, 2023: An advisory panel of the national public agency of the US, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has provisionally recommended Pfizer’s vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus in pregnant women to protect infants during the infection season.
The agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices backed Pfizer’s vaccine, Abrysvo, for women in their middle and the third trimester of pregnancy (32-36 weeks) to prevent lower respiratory tract infection in babies.
The provisional recommendation will be official once it is reviewed and adopted by the director of the CDC, according to a Pfizer statement. The vaccine works from birth through the first six months of an infant’s life.
“This fall marks the start of the annual respiratory infection season in the Northern Hemisphere, and we are prepared with vaccines against multiple infectious diseases and — for the first time in history — an available RSV vaccine to help prevent disease in two at-risk populations,” said Luis Jodar, Chief Medical Affairs Officer, Vaccines/Antivirals and Evidence Generation of Pfizer.
First six months
The ACIP recommendation for maternal immunization with Abrysvo “reinforces the wide-ranging impact vaccines can have, including helping protect infants immediately at birth from the potentially severe and life-threatening complications that can develop from RSV.
“Approximately 75 per cent of RSV-related hospitalizations in newborns and infants occur in the first six months of life,” he said.
In May 2023, the FDA approved Abrysvo for the prevention of lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV in individuals 60 years of age or older. This was followed by the ACIP’s official recommendation of the vaccine for use in adults 60 years of age and older, in June 2023.
There are more than 77 million individuals aged 60 and older in the US. The recommended use of this vaccine can help prevent the potentially serious consequences associated with RSV, which leads to the hospitalisation of more than 60,000 of these adults each year, according to Pfizer.
In August 2023, Pfizer announced that the European Medicines Agency granted marketing authorisation for Abrysvo for both older adults and maternal immunisation to help protect infants.
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