The Medical Advisor

Some older adults should receive the new  respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has concluded, while acknowledging that the risks of the shots may outweigh the benefits for some of the population.   The CDC’s director on June 29 endorsed advice from the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, known as ACIP, for the new vaccines, which are manufactured by Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). That means people aged 60 and older can receive one of the vaccines. But the CDC made clear that people should consult with their doctors before receiving a dose. People 60 and older “may receive a single dose of the vaccine based on discussions with their healthcare provider about whether RSV vaccination is right for them,” the CDC said in a statement. The stance, which the CDC refers to as shared clinical decision-making, differs from the other three levels of recommendations, which begin fro...

Your questions answered about what RSV is, how it spreads, what vaccines are on the way and who is most at risk. As flu season picks up and experts weigh concerns about another  possible COVID surge , children’s hospitals are already filling with patients with another viral threat: respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. Even though many people haven’t heard of RSV, pretty much everyone has had it, probably multiple times, says Anthony Flores, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and a physician at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. RSV is the leading cause of bronchiolitis—inflammation of the lung’s small airways—in infants, and the virus is so common that nearly all children have encountered it by  their second birthday . Credit: Nfid.org “It’s that ubiquitous,” Flores says...