Kristy thought this virus was mild. Then her baby ended up in hospital

Thousands of babies are heading into winter without full protection against RSV despite mounting evidence that free immunisations have led to fewer children ending up in hospital with the common but occasionally severe illness.

Only 15 per cent of babies under eight months had received an RSV immunisation, data from the Australian Immunisation Registry shows. In NSW and Victoria, the coverage rates are significantly lower.

Kristy Gatt with son Blake, who was hospitalised with RSV after missing the window for free immunisation. Credit: Wolter Peeters

Women between 28 and 38 weeks pregnant and newborn babies are now eligible for free respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) immunisations after the rollout of federal and state government schemes earlier this year.

All states and territories now offer nirsevimab, an injection containing ready-made antibodies to fight RSV, to eligible babies born this year.

Just 7.8 per cent of eligible babies in NSW had received the monoclonal antibodies, and Victoria has the lowest rate of coverage of any state or territory at 6.2 per cent.

Newborn babies should be given the RSV antibody if:

• Their mother did not receive a maternal RSV vaccine during pregnancy
• Their mother gave birth within two weeks of their injection
• They are born premature or have particularly weak immune systems 

Queensland and Western Australia, states that have had free RSV immunisation programs for more than 12 months, have much higher rates of coverage – 37.4 per cent and 20.1 per cent respectively.

Associate Professor Nusrat Homaira, a medically trained respiratory epidemiologist at the University of NSW, said rates would most likely improve over time as parents became more aware of the free program and the risks of RSV, which remains the leading cause of acute respiratory illness in infants.

“It is such a bad virus, and it affects the youngest when they’re most vulnerable,” she said.

Kristy Gatt’s son Blake was born on February 18, before the state-funded immunisation program kicked in, but too late for Gatt to receive the Commonwealth-funded maternal vaccine – the first-line defence against the virus.

It left the nine-week-old particularly vulnerable when his older sister came home from daycare with what seemed like a mild cold.

What began as a runny nose and cough became much more serious when he stopped feeding and had serious trouble breathing. After noticing periods where he stopped breathing, Gatt rushed her newborn to nearby Singleton Hospital, in the NSW Hunter Valley.

He was transferred to the larger hospital at Maitland, where he was diagnosed with RSV and spent two nights on a feeding tube and oxygen.

Gatt said that, although Blake had recovered, the experience was traumatising, and encouraged other new parents to ensure their children were protected.

“If you could help your child not become as sick as what my child did, then it’s a no-brainer,” she said.

Dr Christine Selvey, NSW Health’s director of communicable diseases, said any child born after January 1 was eligible for a free catch-up immunisation.

She said the low rates of immunisation in NSW did not paint a full picture because they did not include data on how many pregnant women received the vaccine, which is yet to be released by the Commonwealth.

Results from Western Australia’s immunisation program show about 60 per cent choose to have the injection between 28 and 38 weeks.

In April, the number of infants under six months hospitalised with RSV was half the number hospitalised in the same month last year, but both Selvey and Homaira said it was too early to say whether this was due to the availability of free immunisations.

In Galicia, Spain, the introduction of free RSV immunisation resulted in an 89 per cent reduction in hospitalisations.

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