A Wits professor leads a study that has the potential to prevent pneumonia in babies.
The University of the Witwatersrand has announced that Professor Shabir Madhi led a study that is looking into how a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination of pregnant women could prevent the infection and inflammation of air sacs in the lungs. A statement released by the university explained that the first RSV vaccine to provide evidence that the immunisation of pregnant woman could protect young infants under six months old against severe RSV lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI). The study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine on 30 July 2020 and although the vaccine did not fulfil the stringent criteria for licensure by the United States of America Food and Drug Administration, the study itself provides the first evidence that maternal vaccination could protect infants against RSV illness.
Professor Shabir Madhi explained, “Of particular interest is an analysis of the data by sub-populations, which suggests that the vaccine better protects infants born to women from low- and middle-income countries, such as South Africa. These participants constituted more than two-thirds of those enrolled.” The results are a cause of celebration as these are one of the many other healthcare issues facing people across the world that Covid-19 made people forget. According to Wits University, as fortunate as young children have been to be spared from severe Covid-19 illness, they also suffer the greatest consequences of illness and death from respiratory pathogens. Madhi said, “Children under five and particularly infants up to six months old are at greatest risk of developing lung infections [pneumonia] due to a multitude of other respiratory viruses and bacteria.”
In the RSV vaccine study, 4 636 pregnant women between 28 to 36 weeks of gestation were immunised with a single dose of an RSV vaccine or a placebo. This was to induce an antibody response by the immune system to the RSV F-protein in the vaccine. Approximately half of these women were enrolled in South Africa. Key findings of the study showed that infants born to women who received the RSV vaccine were 44 per cent less likely to be hospitalised for RSV LRTI. Furthermore, these infants were 32 per cent less likely to be hospitalised for pneumonia due to any cause in the first six months of their life.
Although the has not been licensed as yet it does encourage Madhi and his team to continue breaking ground on of this and/or other RSV vaccines for pregnant women to protect their infants.
