Adjuvanted RSVPreF3 Vaccination May Lessen Public Health Burden

Research published in Infectious Diseases and Therapy indicates that vaccination with an adjuvanted respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine among adults aged 60 years or older in the United States may have a significant public health impact. 

Researchers used a static, multi-cohort Markov model to estimate RSV-related outcomes in a 3-year timeframe for scenarios comparing when the adjuvanted RSVPreF3 vaccine is administered once versus never administered among US adults aged 60 years or older. 

The base-case analysis utilized influenza vaccine coverage rates and drew epidemiological and vaccine data from published literature and phase 3 clinical trials of the adjuvanted RSVPreF3 vaccine. Model outcomes encompassed the clinical impact of RSV, detailing symptomatic RSV acute respiratory illness (RSV-ARI), categorized by upper and lower respiratory tract disease, as well as complications like pneumonia and mortality. Additionally, the analysis evaluated health care resource utilization linked to RSV, including hospitalizations, emergency department visits, outpatient visits, and antibiotic prescriptions.

The base-case analysis of about 56.7 million older adults resulted in 2954 465 fewer symptomatic RSV-ARI cases over 3 years in vaccinated adults compared to adults who did not receive a vaccination. Vaccinated adults also experienced 321 019 fewer cases of pneumonia,16 660 fewer deaths related to RSV, 203 891 fewer RSV-related hospitalizations, 164 060 emergency department visits, 1577 586 outpatient visits, and 1343 915 antibiotic prescriptions. 

“A considerable public health impact was observed across a range of sensitivity analyses,” said researchers. “These findings highlight the potential of the adjuvanted RSVPreF3 vaccine to substantially reduce RSV disease burden among US older adults.” 

Reference
Molnar D, La E M, Verelst F, et al. Public health impact of the adjuvanted RSVPreF3 vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus prevention among older adults in the United States. Infectious Diseases and Therapy. 2024;13(4):827–844. doi:10.1007/s40121-024-00939-w