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We may soon have, perhaps, a new vaccine against the respiratory syncytial virus (Rsv), one of the leading causes of hospitalization for infants and young childrento which it can cause acute lower respiratory tract infection and the development of bronchiolitis or pneumonia. A virus that, in Italy alone, causes 21,000 hospitalizations and 3500 deaths every year, and which this year has already put a strain on some pediatric hospitals in the United States. And for which medicine is looking, it seems with good results, for countermeasures: last November 1st, in fact, Pfizer announced the first results of the trial of a vaccine against Rsv, which began in June 2020 and involved over 7 thousand pregnant women from 18 different countries. According to what the pharmaceutical company declares, the vaccine candidate would have demonstrated an efficacy of 81.8% in preventing severe cases of Rsv in the first 90 days of life of newborns and of 69.4% if the observation period is extended. in the first 6 months of life. It also appears to be well tolerated by both future mothers and their newborns.
What is RSV and who it affects most
RSV infection is relatively common in all age groups, but while in healthy adults it often resolves with a simple cold, it can be particularly dangerous for childreni, especially during the first year of life: every year this virus globally causes over 118 thousand deaths in pediatric age. Furthermore, the RSV is increasingly recognized as a important pathogen for the most fragile patientssuch as seniors over the age of 65 or people suffering from other medical conditions.
The vaccine for future mothers
It’s about a bivalent formulation, which would confer protection for forms A and B of the Rsv and which is designed to instruct our body to produce specific antibodies against the F protein of the virus, which allows it to fuse with our cells to infect them, similar to the Spike protein for the Sars-CoV-2. The technology is based on a previous discovery, according to which the Rsv F protein exists in two different conformations depending on whether the virus has already fused with the cell that will be infected, or not.
The vaccine Pfizer contains the same amount of two recombinant F proteins, relating to the two subgroups A and B of the RSV, “frozen” in the conformation that precedes the merger. In fact, it has been shown that antibodies capable of specifically recognizing the “pre-fusion” conformation of the F protein confer more effective protection.
Several vaccines under study on over 60s
Precisely why the problem it’s not just about children, not only Pfizer but also GSK and Janssen are developing preparations that are currently undergoing clinical trials on adult patients. Both GSK and Janssen recently announced promising results from clinical trials in patients 60 years of age and older. At the beginning of October, a conference on this topic was held in Padua, during which Giancarlo Icardi, full professor of Hygiene at the University of Genoa, he has declared that the phase 2 study conducted by Janssen “first of all proved that the vaccine is well tolerated and very safe. The first data then show that this vaccine has an efficacy in protecting against pneumonia around 80% and is effective in preventing other symptoms around 70%. We are therefore talking about a vaccine that is certainly very very promising that we look forward to“.
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