An adjuvanted RSV vaccine has the potential to significantly decrease the burden of RSV among adults aged 60 and older in the United States, according to results published in Infectious Diseases and Therapy. Desmond Curran, PhD, and colleagues constructed a multi-cohort Markov model to estimate RSV-related outcomes over a 3-year period with and without one-time RSV vaccination. In the analysis, an estimated 56.7 million adults aged 60 and older received the vaccine. This led to 2.9 million fewer symptomatic cases of RSV-related acute respiratory illness (ARI) over 3 years compared with no vaccination, including 321,019 fewer confirmed cases of pneumonia and 16,660 fewer RSV-related deaths. In the model, vaccination also prevented a substantial number of RSV-related hospitalizations (203,891), ED visits (164,060), outpatient visits (1.5 million), and antibiotic prescriptions (1.3 million) over 3 years. Further, Dr. Curran and colleagues reported “a considerable public health impact” in multiple sensitivity analyses.
