Parents of infants left ‘helpless’ as virus treatment unavailable in record winter
RSV cases have ballooned to more than 100,000 this year, but the federal government is playing coy with pharma bodies over treatment prices.
Despite a harrowing flu season, the national rollout of an infant respiratory disease vaccine is up in the air following government efforts to squeeze the price on a previous treatment.
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) blocks the airways, often leading to bronchiolitis and pneumonia in newborns. It leads to the hospitalisation of 12,000 Australian babies each year.
RSV is the No 1 cause of hospitalisation for Australian children under five, and places some quarter of cases into intensive care.
On July 10, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee will review an application to add the RSV vaccine Beyfortus to the National Immunisation Program.
Beyfortus was found to reduce RSV-associated infant hospitalisations by as much as 83 per cent.
Access to both prenatal and post-natal medication for RSV has been fraught despite strong health outcomes in states that have adopted the medicines.
The prenatal RSV medication Abrysvo, developed by Pfizer, was recommended by the PBAC, but ultimately rejected by the NIP over its price. Expectant mothers now have to shell out $300 for a prescription.
Both Abrysvo and Beyfortus are registered with the TGA.
Victorian mother Nikita Ryan was pregnant with her son Ollie in June 2023 when her baby son, Josh, was hospitalised for RSV.
“As the day went on, he got sicker and sicker. I couldn’t keep up with his dehydration. I couldn’t keep up with the Panadol or Nurofen. I just wasn’t winning,” Ms Ryan said. “By the time we got to the hospital, he was very sick. I was met by two paediatricians.
“They put a feeding tube down his nose straight away, and he didn’t even flinch. That was how I knew we were in a bit of strife.”
Josh recovered from the infection, but Ms Ryan eventually caught RSV herself, a particular risk in a household of asthmatics.
“My husband and I, we’ve had discussions coming into winter about whether we should go over to WA for a weekend, and get the boys immunised over there,” Ms Ryan said.
“That’s how desperate some families in Victoria are for this vaccination.”
Western Australia, Queensland and NSW offer state-based Beyfortus access.
“It’s been absolutely appalling by our government … that it’s not even been made available to us,” Ms Ryan said. “I just wonder how many politicians have small people in their families, because I think that it would dramatically change their decision.”
Immunisation Coalition chair Rod Pearce argued that federal health bodies had a tendency to push back effective medicine based on pricing.
“This just shines a light on what doesn’t work in our system,” Dr Pearce said.
“It’s based on price, not on whether it’s a good vaccine or not.
According to Dr Pearce, the Health Department haggling on price of new treatments was “an overt relationship for all medication”.
Some 110,000 cases of RSV have been reported in Australia this year, compared with 72,123 in the first half of 2023.
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