‘Make RSV vaccines for newborns available without delay’
Two leading pediatricians, who fought on the front lines of the RSV surge, call for the speedy approval of safe and effective RSV vaccines that will protect newborns.
Last fall, a surge of respiratory viral illnesses sent children to emergency rooms across the country. In an opinion piece published in STAT, NewYork-Presbyterian pediatricians Dr. Sallie Permar and Dr. Karen Acker are making the case for the approval of life-saving RSV vaccines for newborns as soon as possible.
Dr. Sallie Permar
“RSV is viral enemy No. 1 for children. It results in more pediatric hospitalization than any other single cause.” write Dr. Permar, the pediatrician-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Dr. Acker, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist and hospital epidemiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital and assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Dr. Karen Acker
Dr. Permar and Dr. Acker detail two highly effective RSV vaccines that can safely reduce RSV disease in the first year of life. Both are currently under review for newborns. “The development of both RSV vaccines was led by pediatric researchers who understood the burden of disease for children caused by RSV,” they write. “But approval processes for crucial interventions for RSV have been lumbering, even as the next respiratory viral season looms.”
They conclude: “Pediatricians often have to be the voice for children. So we are asking on their behalf now: Make RSV vaccines for newborns available without delay and before they fill up pediatric emergency rooms and hospitals across the country.”
Read the full op-ed here.