RSV Vaccine Candidates Approach the Starting Gate - Precision Vaccinations
(Precision Vaccinations) After decades of false starts, new research indicates four Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine candidates are nearing the completion of late-stage trials. According to the U.S. CDC, RSV vaccines could drastically reduce hospital and intensive-care admissions for young children and seniors. Unfortunately, an earlier version created sickness in children. RSV infections are usually most severe in infants under two months old, who encounter the virus for the first time. A series of clinical trials tested a vaccine made from inactivated RSV in children in the 1960s. Tragically, the vaccine candidate worsened the disease in vaccinated children when they were later naturally infected with RSV, reported the journal Nature in 2008. These 'breakthrough' infections caused severe lung disease that hospitalized most of the children in the trial and killed two. And for seniors, RSV infections are dangerous as immune systems weaken. According to th...