Daily Dose: Possible Impact of RSVpreF Maternal Vaccine for RSV Prevention in Infants

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Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.

On October 14, 2023, we reported on findings presented at IDWeek 2023, held October 11-15 in Boston, MA.

The study

The study evaluated the potential public health impact of the Pfizer bivalent stabilized prefusion F subunit vaccine (RSVpreF) in a single year, which was measured as the reduction in clinical outcomes and economic costs.

Using a cohort model, investigators depicted clinical outcomes and economic costs of RSV-LRTI from birth to age 1 year, lifetime consequences of premature death, and impact of maternal vaccination with RSVpreF among infants.

Projections of clinical outcomes (by month) were based on infant age, gestational age in weeks (wGA) at birth, RSV disease and fatality rates, and mother’s vaccination status; cases included medically attended RSV-LRTI and RSV-LRTI deaths. Efficacy of maternal vaccination with RSVpreF was derived from interim trial analyses.

Researchers generated economic costs based on cases and corresponding unit costs. The public health impact of RSVpreF was evaluated assuming year-round use and 100% uptake.

Findings

The analysis projected that without use of the maternal RSVPreF vaccine there would be 48 246 hospitalizations, 144 495 ED encounters, and 399 313 outpatient clinic visits annually presuming a US birth cohort of 3.7M infants aged younger than 12 months. Projections after presumptive maternal vaccination with RSVpreF resulted in a reduction of 24 520 hospitalizations, 45 957 ED encounters, and 128 745 OC visits. This reduction in clinical events was linked with a corresponding decrease in direct medical costs equal to $691.8 million and indirect (non-medical) costs equal to $110.0 million.

Authors' comment

"These results may be conservative as we did not include potential for reductions in outcomes such as maternal RSV disease, household transmission, and long-term sequelae such as asthma."

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