RSV Vaccine is Highly Effective at Preventing Hospitalization, Death in Older Adults

By Rob Dillard - Last Updated: October 30, 2024

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination is effective at preventing hospitalizations and trips to the emergency room in older adults, according to a recent large-scale study published in The Lancet.

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“Unlike this data study, clinical trials for the RSV vaccine were underpowered to access the effectiveness of the vaccines against severe disease requiring hospitalization. Addressing this gap in evidence, we were able to use the power of big data to determine RSV vaccine effectiveness, information needed to inform vaccine policy,” said study co-author Shaun Grannis, MD, MS, via a press release about the study. “As a data scientist and a family practice physician, I encourage older adults to follow CDC guidance and get vaccinated for RSV as we enter this year’s and every year’s respiratory disease season.”

In this test-negative design analysis, researchers assessed an electronic health records-based network in eight US states to find hospitalizations and emergency department encounters due to RSV among older adults (60 years and above) who underwent virus testing virus testing from Oct 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024. Overall, they analyzed 28,271 hospitalizations for RSV among patients without immunocompromising conditions.

The findings showed that the RSV vaccine effectiveness was 80% against RSV-associated hospitalizations, and 81% effective against RSV-association critical illness, meaning ICU admission, death, or both. Moreover, among individuals with RSV-like illness and immunocompromising conditions, the vaccine effectiveness was 73% at preventing hospitalization, and 77% effective against RSV-associated emergency department encounters.

“No vaccine is 100 percent effective. An 80 percent vaccine effectiveness rate is quite impressive and higher than we see, for example, with the influenza vaccine,” said study co-author Brian Dixon, PhD, MPA. “The bottom line is that using real world data from electronic medical records routinely captured in care for people from diverse walks of life we found that having the vaccine was highly protective against hospitalization, severe illness and death.”

 

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