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Tag: nirsevimab

Quebec launches annual flu/COVID vaccination campaign

Quebec public health authorities on Monday launched the annual influenza and COVID-19 vaccination campaign, administering the shots first to people in long-term care before making the vaccines available for free to the general population as of Oct. 16.

And for the first time this year, medical staff will be immunizing infants up the age of 18 months against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a seasonal pathogen that often leads to overcrowded pediatric emergency rooms during the winter. Health Canada has approved a monoclonal antibody therapy, Nirsevimab, which is now being injected into premature infants in Quebec before they leave the hospital.

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New antibody treatment for RSV in infants highly effective in reducing hospitalisations

A new antibody treatment could reduce by 80 per cent the numbers of babies and young children admitted to hospital with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a “groundbreaking” study has found.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, the study involved 8,058 healthy babies aged up to 12 months from the UK, France and Germany, who were approaching their first RSV season. Half were randomly assigned to receive the antibody nirsevimab by injection, while 4,021 babies received standard care.

Of the babies who received the treatment, only 11 (0.3 per cent) were hospitalised, in comparison with the 60 babies (1.5 per cent) who were hospitalised after receiving just the standard care.

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