The health and safety regulatory body has warned that planned extensions to Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccinations could pose significant operational difficulties. As part of their efforts, the government will be offering up to 28,000 infants protection against this potentially lethal respiratory virus within the year. Only infants born between September 2024 and February 2025 are eligible for the vaccine.
The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) unveiled its prompt assessment of immunisation against RSV on Tuesday. It’s intended to guide temporary policy decisions on the optimum strategy for the 2025 to 2026 RSV season.
RSV is an extremely infectious virus that affects the lungs and upper airways and can spread through coughing, sneezing or breathing. It typically reappears every winter, with the RSV season in Ireland generally lasting from October to March.
Hiqa’s cost analysis suggests that the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) projected cost of providing infants with their first RSV immunisation season could range from 3.9 million euros to 19 million euros, depending on the chosen strategy. On the plus side, fewer infants requiring hospital care could partially offset these expenses.
Providing the RSV vaccine to everyone aged 65 and above could cost over 146 million euros, and offering it only to those aged 75 and older could cost more than 76 million euros. However, due to the relatively low number of confirmed RSV hospitalisations in this age group, the potential for cost offsets was deemed low.
Dr Máirín Ryan, Hiqa’s Deputy Chief Executive, highlighted the grave organisational challenges that extending RSV vaccinations to the general infant population and or older adults would pose. The proposed extension would require the immunisation of a large number of individuals in a relatively short time before the RSV season starts. She further stressed that the cost of the various RSV strategies should be a key factor in decision-making, given their uncertainty.
The virus posed a significant burden on children’s hospitals the previous year. In 2023, there were 1,397 hospitalisations in infants under one year due to RSV, with the majority (1,017) being in infants less than six months old.
Hiqa will perform a more comprehensive assessment to advise a longer-term policy decision regarding RSV immunisation.
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