Starting this Friday, a new preventive treatment for bronchiolitis, Beyfortus, It is available in health establishments and upon request in pharmacies. A monoclonal antibody intended for newborns that requires only one injection from birth, an injection that can be administered in the maternity ward. And that protects for five months. Children born before 2023 can also benefit.
The European Commission also gave the green light in August to the new Abrysvo vaccine, which aims to protect children by vaccinating pregnant women, although it is not expected to be available in France for at least a year. Its principle: passive immunization. The vaccinated pregnant woman produces antibodies that cross the placental barrier and immunize the fetus against the respiratory syncytal virus (RSV), the main cause of bronchiolitis.
So, between this new preventive treatment for babies and the new vaccine for pregnant women, can we expect the imminent disappearance of bronchiolitis? This is warned by virologist Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, a researcher at the national reference center for respiratory viruses of the Pasteur Institute and Inserm.
“There are few possibilities,” he assures BFMTV.com.
Avoid saturation of the health system
For Christèle Gras-Le Guen, head of the pediatric service at Nantes University Hospital and president of the French Pediatric Society (SFP), this virus is so widespread that it will be difficult to eradicate it. “Most adults who have a runny nose or cough in winter may have been infected by RSV,” she warns BFMTV.com.
“The virus will continue to circulate.”
The ambition of these two treatments: to protect babies. This is confirmed by researcher Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, a specialist in respiratory syncytial viruses and professor at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
“The ambition is to significantly reduce the number of serious infections that require hospitalization, impact the health system and thus avoid saturation of intensive care services.”
Long term consequences
RSV is the leading cause of hospitalization in infants and children. Last year, the bronchiolitis epidemic caused the hospitalization of more than 26,000 children under 2 years of age, includes Public Health France in its 2022-2023 surveillance report. The epidemic was of such magnitude that Babies in intensive care had to be transferred to other regions due to lack of space in pediatric departments.
“It is the little ones who suffer from the most serious forms,” insists pediatrician and university professor Christèle Gras-Le Guen. “The sooner we protect them, the more hospitalizations we will avoid.”
Especially since severe forms of the disease can have more or less lasting consequences in young patients, in particular predisposing to asthma in childhood. “It is as if this infection has a mark on the respiratory system,” observes virologist Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti.
Halve severe forms
Another explanation for the fact that these new treatments do not completely eliminate the disease: RSV is responsible for 70% of bronchiolitis. “Not 100%,” says researcher Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti.
“There are other viruses, which this vaccine does not attack, that cause the same clinical symptoms.”
Furthermore, the effectiveness of Abrysvo in severe forms is not complete. “We have an efficiency of between 70 and 80%, although it is extremely effective,” says the virologist.
“But we can hope to reduce acute infections by 50%, which would be a lot.”
Source: BFM TV
