RSV: Vaccine trial hopes to cut baby hospital admissions

Researchers will be putting up posters in nurseries and sending out letters to parents

Doctors in Somerset are appealing to parents with babies to take part in a "ground-breaking" respiratory virus vaccine trial.

The Harmonie study aims to develop a jab that will dramatically reduce the number of babies admitted to hospital with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton aims to recruit 150 infants for the study.

RSV affects 90% of children before the age of two, and is a leading causes of the chest infection bronchiolitis.

One in six babies hospitalised in the UK in winter have bronchiolitis.

Most children with RSV have mild symptoms, but a small number need hospital treatment.

The study follows on from other research to see how strongly babies can be protected from serious illness due to RSV by giving them a single antibody dose.

Run by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), in partnership with pharmaceutical firms Sanofi and AstraZeneca, it is hoped 12,000 babies in the UK will take part.

'Very safe'

Dr Rebecca Mann, a consultant paediatrician at the Taunton hospital, said the trial was "truly ground-breaking".

"(The vaccine) has already been tested in high-risk babies with lung problems or premature babies and was found to be very safe and also effective," Dr Mann said.

"In those babies it has reduced hospital admissions by about 75% or so and this study is to see if we extend that study to healthy babies born over 35 weeks gestation we reduce bronchiolitis and RSV infection across the whole population of babies."

The trial is also running in France and Germany and it is hoped a total of 20,000 infants will take part.

Dr Mann added the study would provide information about whether the RSV jab could become part of the routine vaccination programme in the UK in the future.

The study is running at 150 sites across the UK.

Researchers will be putting up posters in nurseries and sending out letters to parents whose babies are due to have their routine vaccines, to encourage them to take part.