Pfizer’s RSV Vaccine Effective in Keeping Infants Out of Hospital in Phase 3 Trial
Pfizer announced that its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine showed an efficacy of 82 percent against hospitalization in infants under 90 days old, and 69 percent among those younger than six months, according to a press release from the company.“This is potentially very exciting news,” says William Schaffner, MD, professor of medicine, in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, who was not involved in the vaccine’s development. “RSV is the leading cause of hospitalization in young infants — if we could reduce that by 70 percent, that would an enormous boon,” he says.The rise in RSV, flu, and COVID-19 cases in recent weeks have many experts worried that the United States could soon be dealing with a “tripledemic” of the respiratory viruses.RELATED: How Babies…