2019 Research Excellence Award The Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccine
By Laurel Williams The COVID - 19 pandemic brought about a lot of change to society. One positive thing that came from the pandemic was that we were able to utilize new technology to rapidly respond to the need for a vaccine. Following the success of the vaccine, scientists have been developing new vaccines using the same technology for other common viruses. One example is Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). RSV causes flu and cold - like symptoms, and it is the most dangerous for infants and older adults 1 . Those at higher risk of infection include people who suffer from chronic illness, especially heart and lung disease, have a weakened immune system, and/or are living in long - term care facilities 1 . Globally, in 2019, there were 5.2 million cases of acute respiratory infections brought on by RSV with more than 470,000 hospitalizations and 33,000 deaths during hospitalization 2 . Typically, RSV season starts mid to late November and ends early to mid - May 3 . However, after the COVID - 19 pandemic, the seasonal pattern of common viruses such as the flu and RSV have changed. During the 2020 - 21 fall and winter season, RSV infection rates fell drastically—it had nearly disappeared for the year 3 . The near disappearance was due to non - pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as social distancing and masking that were common during the COVID - 19 pandemic 3 . As NPIs were reduced in the spring of 2021, we saw increased rates of out of season RSV infections 3 . In 2022, RSV peaked earlier and circulated longer as well 4 . The likely explanation for the increased rates of out of season infections is that the lack of the presence of RSV for a year may have caused reduced immunity within the population. This potentially led to a higher number of people who are susceptible to RSV, causing infection rates to spike. RSV and other viruses are expected to eventually return to pre - pandemic seasonal patterns but will be unpredictable for about the next two years 4 .
RSV vaccine research has been ongoing since 1965, following the success of the polio vaccine 5 . As new technology became available, researchers would apply new ideas and techniques to further their research. In 2006, the focus became attempting to “ solve ” the structure of the virus in order to find vulnerabilities in areas that could be Graph 1: Weekly test positivity rate for RSV over 5 seasons; the red box highlights the lack of RSV during fall and winter of 2020 - 21 and the green box highlights an out of season spike in the spring and summer of 2021 3 .
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