New vaccine technology raises hope for RSV treatment

The development of a new vaccine technology has raised hopes for the treatment of Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, which is a deadly syndrome in infants.

Washington, May 9 : The development of a new vaccine technology has raised hopes for the treatment of Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, which is a deadly syndrome in infants.

The vaccine technology was developed by the Sir Albert Sakzewski Virus Research Centre and The University of Queensland's Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences.

Research centre director Professor Robert Tindle said RSV, which costs millions of dollars a year in health care in Australia and billions in the United States, can lead to severe and life threatening lower respiratory tract infection or bronchiolitis, killing about one in 1000.

However, the vaccine that is being developed is expected to treat the illness in infected people as well as prevent against it.

Children aged two and under are most prone to RSV, especially those with weak respiratory symptoms, elderly people and the immunocompromised, such as people with HIV or those who have weakened immune systems due to treatments such as chemotherapy.

"Benefits of the vaccine will include a huge saving in health care costs. (It will also) relieve the burden of worry on thousands of parents who every year go through all kinds of angst because their young children are going into hospital with very worrying symptoms and it would prevent the death of the children who succumb to it and die," Professor Tindle said.

With preclinical modelling in mice having been hopeful, Professor Tindle said that more clinical experiments were on their way, leading the way to the vaccine becoming available in the clinic. He hoped it would become one of the vaccines given to all infants in their first three months of life.

Professor Tindle said the significance of the research project was two-fold because, along with helping children, it included forming a new type of vaccine. The research group has developed a "recombinant" vaccine using the existing Hepatitis B vaccine to carry the RSV peptides.

"Hepatitis B surface antigen forms virus-like particles, which are the vaccine used for Hepatitis B vaccine all around the world. We're taking advantage of that to piggyback, if you like, the respiratory syncytial virus peptides into the vaccine," Professor Tindle said.

Professor Tindle hoped the vaccine would eventually be able to protect people against both diseases in the one shot and, even better, the recombinant vaccine model could potentially be used for most transmittable diseases and some cancers.

ANI