2023-11-12 06:48:17
After the recent arrival of the drug Beyfortus, doctors should soon be able to count on a new vaccine to fight against bronchiolitis. It is aimed at pregnant women and will protect the newborn from birth to 6 months.
This is a big step further for the health of infants: after the deployment this fall of the new monoclonal antibody Beyfortus, the first vaccine against bronchiolitis, intended for pregnant women, should arrive in the coming months. While one in three babies is affected each winter by this disease – currently accelerating with ten regions now in an epidemic phase – this new vaccine raises a lot of expectations.
An advance welcomed by Christèle Gras-Le Guen, head of the pediatrics department at Nantes University Hospital and president of the French Society of Pediatrics (SFP) for BFMTV.com.
“The prospect of this new means of prevention is a source of great hope.”
This vaccine, called Abrysvo, was authorized at the end of July by the European Medicines Agency before the European Commission does not give the green light at the end of August. Marketed by the Pfizer laboratory, it will be aimed at pregnant women in their third trimester of pregnancy – as well as people aged over 60.
Not before winter 2024
“For newborns, we talk about passive immunization,” virologist Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, a researcher at the national reference center for respiratory viruses at the Pasteur Institute and at Inserm, explains to BFMTV.com. “Vaccinated pregnant women produce antibodies which cross the placental barrier. The mothers thus transmit them to the fetuses who are therefore immunized.”
Protection for babies up to approximately 6 months of age, as for chickenpox or measles if the mother has already contracted the first and has been vaccinated against the second.
But we will still have to wait a little before pregnant women can benefit from it. Abrysvo will in fact not be available until the next winter season. This is what the General Directorate of Health (DGS) specifies at BFMTV.com.
“The modalities of vaccination, the target population and the organizational aspects will be specified by the health authorities after advice from the High Authority of Health”, expected for May 2024, specifies a framework note.
A highly contagious viral infection
Bronchiolitis is an acute and highly contagious viral infection. It is most often due to the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) which causes inflammation of the walls of the bronchioles – that is to say the smallest bronchi – and an increase in secretions, causing a phenomenon of obstruction, explains the site of Health Insurance.
This disease affects children under 2 years old and is characterized by an episode of respiratory difficulty with coughing, rapid breathing and wheezing. A disease that can quickly degenerate in infants. “If you or I have a runny nose or cough in winter, it’s not serious,” says pediatrician and university professor Christèle Gras-Le Guen.
“But if a baby leaving the maternity ward catches it, he or she could end up in intensive care.”
“This is the first time that we finally have a preventive treatment for severe RSV infections,” also enthuses Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti. “We have been looking for an effective means of prevention for years.” After the discovery of the virus in 1956, the first vaccine trials took place at the end of the 1960s, recalls the virologist. “But until now, we have had no effective means with an attractive cost/benefit ratio.”
“It will limit serious forms”
However, Abrysvo – like the Covid vaccine – will not prevent contracting the disease, specifies virologist Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, also a professor at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. “It will limit serious forms.”
Just like Beyfortus – a new monoclonal antibody already available – offered for the first time this year. This treatment, which requires only a single injection from birth, protects infants from RSV and can also be injected as a catch-up injection for children born since the last epidemic.
But it was a victim of its own success: barely two weeks after its launch in September, the Ministry of Health decided to reserve access to maternity wards. However, some experienced stock shortages and not all newborns were able to benefit from them, as a mother testified for BFMTV.com.
However, for the next winter seasons, if mild infections will not disappear, the vaccine and the new treatment will make it possible to reduce the number of severe cases, hospitalizations and will avoid the saturation of intensive care units, as had happened. Last year. The epidemic was characterized by “very high intensity”, points out Public Health France, particularly in terms of visits to emergency rooms and hospitalizations among children under 2 years old, namely more than 26,000.
The epidemic had been such that babies in intensive care had to be transferred to other regions due to lack of space in pediatric departments, saturated by cases of bronchiolitis. The Minister of Health, François Braun, had mentioned a “critical situation in the health system” and the Orsan plan had been triggered.
During the last winter season, the bronchiolitis epidemic began in the first week of October, recalls Public Health France in its 2022-2023 surveillance report. The peak was reached in early December and the epidemic ended in mid-January. But like the previous season, the start of the epidemic was early and its duration prolonged (i.e. 16 weeks compared to 12 over the 2015-2020 period).
1699808633
#bronchiolitis #Abrysvo #vaccine #source #great #hopes