The triple viral vaccine is the vaccine that protects against measles, rubella and mumps and is one of those included in the national vaccination schedule. But maybe in a few years, there is another triple viral. The FDA, the equivalent body of our ANMAT, has just taken an important step on that path: it authorized a new messenger RNA vaccine which was tested in Argentina.
To understand what we are talking about and why it is important, we must set a context and go back in time, to the time of the pandemic, when people began to talk about the “panvaccine” or triple vaccine. At the dawn of Covid vaccination, the novel messenger RNA platform opened a world in immunology.
So, the focus was already on what would happen in the future: this technology would allow the development, in a single puncture, of protection against the new Covid and against the old acquaintance influenzaand also a very well-known but underrated virus: the respiratory syncytial (RSV).
This 2024 seems to be the year of the syncytial. To put context again, in 2023 this respiratory virus collapsed the pediatric wards due to cases of bronchiolitis, as usually happens but in recent times it has worsened due to the lack of pediatricians.
This year, for the first time, a vaccine against RSV began to be administered to pregnant women, which manages to protect infants. Only when the winter passes will it be possible to estimate the impact of this vaccine – which was developed by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer -, but the authorities of the Ministry of Health had indicated a few weeks ago that the vaccination campaign is going very well.
This vaccine is included in the national vaccination calendar, so it is mandatory and free. But syncytial is a virus that is characterized by hitting both extremes of life more severely: young children and older adults. This year, the ANMAT authorized this Pfizer vaccine and another developed by the British company GSK for people over 60 years of age, but in this case in the private sector. Both are now available in vaccination centers and use a prefusion protein of the virus.
The RSV vaccine was one of the “holy grails” of immunology. It has been investigated for decades and only now, with the prefusion protein, has it been possible to obtain an effective vaccine. And, also, with messenger RNA.
The new vaccine that was tested here
The highest American health authority authorized at the beginning of the month the first RSV vaccine with messenger RNA, developed by the American laboratory Moderna. In Argentina it is estimated that the request for approval will be made soon. Here, Moderna’s Covid vaccine is marketed by the Raffo laboratory, which could expand its portfolio to other vaccines. Because Moderna is also studying a messenger RNA vaccine for influenza.
Gonzalo Pérez Marc is principal investigator of Equipo Ciencia, which carried out the trials of the Pfizer Covid vaccine, the two US vaccines against RSV and the Moderna flu vaccine in Argentina. For this new RSV vaccine, he led the global recruitment of volunteers for the phase 3 clinical trial, with more than 1,600 participants.
This first approval of a messenger RNA vaccine for a pathology other than Covid “represents an important milestone in the fight against RSV and We are proud to have contributed to its development“remarks the scientist.
“We are getting new vaccines for old viruses that did not have vaccines”remarks Pérez Marc.
Respiratory syncytial, he states, “is as or more harmful than the flu,” mainly because of “the impact on patients who have cardiovascular pathology. Destabilizes heart failure”, explains about the impact on older adults hospitalized for RSV.
However, he concedes, it is a virus that somehow It is underestimated because it is little tested. He believes that with vaccines we will begin to have a greater understanding of its severity and it will be investigated more because it can also now be prevented. And he is convinced that the new RSV vaccines they are going to change the paradigm.
It is that in the short term there will be a combination of options to cover the entire spectrum of prevention and care. On the one hand, the authorized vaccines for older adults and for pregnant women to protect the little ones (who are often the ones who infect their grandparents who take care of them). On the other hand, existing monoclonal antibodies used in babies.
Furthermore, it will be tested an inhaled pediatric vaccine from the French laboratory Sanofi, which not only has the advantage of application but would generate antibodies in the upper airways, thereby reducing transmissibility.
But there is more: an antiviralalso developed by Pfizer, for pediatrics and older adults, to reduce the burden of the disease, because as we learned with Covid, vaccines significantly prevent the disease but do not prevent contagion.
The vaccines that are coming
From the Moderna laboratory, they informed Clarion who are moving forward with messenger RNA vaccine against seasonal influenza. “It demonstrated an acceptable safety and tolerability profile in all clinical trials to date, including three Phase 3 trials,” the company said in a statement, noting that “consultations are currently underway with regulators regarding a potential package.” licensing based on this data” and that they continue to “advance a portfolio of influenza vaccine candidates.
And they also anticipated what is coming: that they hope next year to have a combined vaccine that can prevent the three (or at least two) main respiratory viruses that complicate every winter: flu, Covid and syncytial. Currently, combined studies are being done on influenza and Covid, influenza and syncytial, and the three viruses.
Pérez Marc is very optimistic. So much so that he believes that precious triple vaccine “He is going to be a victim of his own success.” What does she mean? That with RSV they are seeing such good results over the months that it is likely that not every year people will have to be immunized against that virus. So, there is the importance of also having a “double”, since against Covid and influenza you have to get vaccinated every year.
“We would never have imagined this scenario. It was absolutely unthinkable a couple of years ago that we were going to have all these options,” says the doctor and concludes that with the new technological platforms “a new world opened up”.
