RSV Vaccination in Older Adults Could Significantly Reduce Disease Burden, Model Suggests

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination in adults aged 60 years or older could substantially reduce the overall disease burden in the United States, according to findings published in the Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases. 

“RSV is shown to cause substantial morbidity, hospitalization, and mortality in infants and older adults,” said researchers. “Population-level modelling of RSV would allow for estimation of the full burden of disease and the potential epidemiological impact of novel prophylactics.”

The researchers utilized a deterministic compartmental transmission model to estimate the impact of vaccination on the number of population-level symptomatic RSV acute respiratory tract infection (ARI) cases in the United States. The model projected cases across different natural history scenarios and all age groups, with vs without vaccination in adults aged 60 years or older. 

The researchers investigated vaccine efficacy, medical attendance, hospitalization rates, complications, death, and the impact of RSV infectiousness and vaccine coverage on the incidence of ARIs. 

The model estimates RSV would affect all age groups in the United States but would particularly burden older adults. Without vaccination, researchers estimated 17.5 million to 22.6 million annual symptomatic RSV ARI cases in adults aged at least 18 years. Of these, between 3.6 to 4.8 million cases were estimated to occur in adults aged 60 years or more. 

The model suggests up to 2 million symptomatic RSV ARI cases in older adults could be prevented annually with: 1) a hypothetical vaccine with a 70% efficacy rate against symptomatic ARI, and 2) 60% vaccine coverage. Assuming the vaccine is 50% efficacious for reducing infectiousness, 0.69 million cases could still be prevented in unvaccinated individuals annually, researchers said.

RSV vaccination in individuals aged at least 60 years could significantly reduce the disease burden among older adults, researchers advised. The resulting reduction in RSV’s transmissibility would also benefit younger populations.

Reference:
Van Effelterre T, Hens N, White LJ, et al. Modeling respiratory syncytial virus adult vaccination in the United States with a dynamic transmission model. Clin Infect Dis. Published online March 23, 2023. doi:10.1093/cid/ciad161