Hopes for national RSV treatment after immunisation approval and Western Australia roll-out
WA is leading the country in tackling respiratory syncytial virus with a state-wide immunisation rollout following TGA approval
Australians will have access for the first time to an immunisation to protect infants from respiratory syncytial virus, with the Western Australian government bankrolling a statewide program.
RSV can induce bronchiolitis and pneumonia in newborns and infants. It leads to the hospitalisation of 12,000 children aged 12 months or younger each year.
The Australian understands the immunisation, known as Beyfortus, was offered to all state and territory governments. While it remains in consideration across the country, the WA government is the only group to fund a statewide rollout of the medication, developed by Sanofi.
Sanofi is seeking to put Beyfortus on the National Immunisation Program but, if approved, the earliest it would be admitted is 2025. The company is hoping for a national program to guarantee wider access ahead of the winter, when RSV is most virulent.
The immunisation was registered for use in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for children up to 24 months. It is administered to a patient only once and was found to reduce RSV-associated infant hospitalisations by as much as 83 per cent.
“While equitable access to RSV protection for all Australian infants is our goal, we have seen with influenza vaccines and other immunisations that state governments are often ideally placed to confirm timely funded programs for their state’s population,” Sanofi Australia and New Zealand general manager of vaccines Regis Launay said.
For Catherine Hughes, founder and director of the Immunisation Foundation of Australia, the approval of further treatment felt like a personal victory.
Ms Hughes lost son Riley to whooping cough in 2015, leading her to successfully advocate for the introduction of free whooping cough vaccines for pregnant women. A year later her infant daughter, Lucy, was hospitalised with RSV
“I won’t lie. We were consumed by thoughts of Riley and a foreboding sense of ‘not again’,” Ms Hughes said.
“WA is a leader in the fight against vaccine-preventable diseases.
“It was one of the first to adopt a maternal whooping cough immunisation program, the first to provide influenza vaccines for children, and will now be the first to protect all infants against severe RSV.”
The rollout of RSV immunisation was endorsed by the Royal Australian College of GPs.