There are very few vaccines that can be given to a newborn for a simple reason: your immune system is barely able to create defenses when they are so small and it is better to wait until it is a little older. For this reason, most vaccines are given after 2 months; vaccines such as hexavalent, pneumococcal or rotavirus and meningococcus B if deemed necessary (as we told you a few days ago in reference to the vaccination calendar in Spain).
The fact is that, when vaccines are administered at 2 months of life of the baby, there is a risk until then that he takes some diseases, such as whooping cough, and that is why a while ago a measure was initiated to protect the vaccine with the mom during pregnancy, and the baby bouncing, by passing through the placenta the mother's defenses. Now, this option is to be reused with a vaccine under investigation: the bronchiolitis vaccine.
The 'damn' VRS or Respiratory Syncytial Virus
Perhaps you have heard him name on some occasion, especially if you have children and friends with children, because it is a very common virus in newborns and small babies; and because it is a virus that bothers a lot. Annoying so much, that if you have heard it, it will be because some baby has been admitted to the hospital his fault.
And it is that RSV causes about 60 to 80% of serious respiratory infections in babies, and is also the main cause of bronchiolitis, a condition that normally requires admission, because it is suffered mainly by small babies, and that consists of a narrowing of the bronchioles, because of its inflammation and increase mucus in the area. In case you do not know, the bronchioles are the final part of the respiratory system, the thinnest airways that are just before reaching the pulmonary alveoli.
The symptoms are evident when such an event occurs: fever, loss of appetite, mucus, cough and wheezing when auscultated. For us adults, on the other hand, RSV would produce symptoms similar to those of a mild cold, so we must be cautious and not only wash our hands if we are going to take the baby, but try not to be with him much if we have symptoms.
Two vaccines for RSV
There is already a preventive medicine for RSV that is given to babies at higher risk (they are antibody) and that has been effectively dressed, but only used with a minority of children, because they are considered to be at greater risk of suffering it. I am talking about babies with a chronic lung disease, with heart disease, or premature diseases below 32 weeks, in some cases (which professionals should inform to administer or not).
What the so-called "European VRS Consortium" plans to do, as we read in Medical Writing, is to develop two vaccines to try to reduce the number of cases of serious respiratory infections that still happen. One of the vaccines will be given to babies and the other to administer in pregnant women.
The most advanced is the vaccine for pregnant women
Of the two vaccines that are being planned, the most advanced is the one aimed at pregnant women, which will work the same as the pertussis vaccine: creating antibodies in the woman who they will be transferred to babies to be born with a certain immunity. And it is in the first weeks and months when babies are more at risk of infection with RSV and, consequently, more risk of bronchiolitis and other respiratory conditions.
The other vaccine is still in the first phase of development and is for babies, although once it appears it will be necessary to see if it will become part of the subsidized vaccines or not, if it will only be used in the hospital environment or if it will be limited, as the current medicine, called Palivizumab, for specific cases.
