RSV cases continue to rise in the US, but a vaccine to protect young children against the respiratory virus is still a long way off.
RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is the most common cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia in children under 1 year of age, causing thousands of pediatric hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths each year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
what there is no vaccine against RSV for children, not for lack of interest, experts say. But the trial, which began not too many years ago, and the complex target protein have complicated the development of an RSV vaccine.
According to Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, researchers have been trying to develop a vaccine against RSV for decades.
In the 1960s, a pediatric hospital in Washington, D.C. developed a vaccine against the virus and conducted a clinical trial small children have it. But soon everything went wrong.
Instead of protecting against RSV, the experimental vaccine made children more likely to develop more severe disease if infected. Many children were hospitalized in the process, and two young children died.
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What preventive measures can you take to avoid RSV? The CDC recommends washing your hands and avoiding close contact with others.
