Up to 28,000 babies to be offered RSV vaccine says health minister

Under plans drawn up by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, up to 28,000 babies will be offered a vaccine to protect them against a potentially deadly respiratory virus.

Today, the minister will seek Cabinet approval for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination program.

The virus put significant pressure on pediatric hospitals last year. In 2023, there were 1,397 hospitalizations for RSV in infants less than 1 year old, with the majority (1,017) being infants less than 6 months old.

During winter 2023/2024, 118 pediatric intensive care unit admissions in infants <1 year of age were attributed to RSV.

Adult intensive care beds have had to be put on hold for pediatric patients due to the high number of hospital and intensive care admissions.

Under the plan, parents will be encouraged to vaccinate their newborns before leaving the hospital and the vaccine will be effective for up to five months, which is the average length of an RSV season. Protection against the vaccine is immediate once administered.

Babies born between September 2024 and February 2025 will be eligible for the vaccine.

Mr Donnelly drew up plans for a vaccination program to start for newborns in September following advice from the National Immunization Advisory Committee (NIAC) that the vaccines were safe and effective.

The NIAC noted preliminary data from a clinical trial conducted in Europe two years ago, involving more than 8,000 infants. The trial reported an 83 percent reduction in RSV-related hospitalizations in infants.

Advice provided to the Minister suggests that applying this data to the Irish infant population could avoid up to 453 hospitalizations and up to 48 intensive care admissions, if the newborn uptake rate was 50 % this fall and winter.

NIAC also indicated that cost-effectiveness analysis and programmatic considerations are necessary to determine the most appropriate permanent RSV vaccination strategy.

The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has been commissioned to carry out a rapid assessment of RSV vaccination in Ireland, followed by a comprehensive health technology assessment, which will include infants and older people.