SARS-CoV-2

• "Over the course of 2023, we delivered on our promise for a year of important data from our Annamycin clinical development programs.
• We are well-positioned to continue building upon our encouraging growing body of preliminary clinical data and transition to pivotal Phase 2B/3 clinical trials by year-end 2024.
• With our recent financing in December 2023, we have extended our runway into the fourth quarter of 2024, as well.
• WP1122 successfully completed a Phase 1 clinical trial, which established a recommended safe dose for future potential Phase 1B or Phase 2 clinical trials.

• The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has approved a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in Australia for the first time.
• RSV is a contagious respiratory virus which causes an illness similar to influenza, most notably in babies and older adults.

A bit about RSV

• There are two key groups of people we would like to protect from RSV: babies (up to about one year old) and people older than 60.
• In babies and younger children, RSV generally causes a wheezing asthma-like illness (bronchiolitis), but can also cause pneumonia and croup.

RSV vaccines for older people

• For older adults, there are actually several RSV vaccines in the pipeline.
• The GSK and Pfizer RSV vaccines are similar.
• Both vaccines have been shown to reduce illness from RSV by more than 80% in the first season after vaccination.

Protecting young children from RSV

• To prevent other diseases, this can be overcome by giving multiple vaccine doses over time.
• But the highest risk group for RSV are those in the first few months of life.
• To protect this youngest age group from the virus, there are two potential strategies available instead of vaccinating the child directly.

• Abrysvo, the Pfizer RSV vaccine, has been trialled in pregnant women.
• In clinical trials, this vaccine has been shown to reduce illness in infants for up to six months.
• It has been approved in pregnant women in the United States, but is not yet approved in Australia.

What now?

• RSV, like influenza, is a major cause of respiratory illness, and the development of effective vaccines represents a major advance.
• While the approval of the first vaccine for older people is an important step, many details are yet to be made available, including the cost and the timing of availability.

Allen Cheng receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Government. He is a member of the Australian Technical Advsory Group on Immunisation. The views expressed in this article may not reflect those of ATAGI.

Since 2022, a triple epidemic of respiratory viruses — RSV, influenza and SARS-CoV-2 — has been disrupting our daily lives. In addition, the media constantly reminds us of how this is straining emergency departments. How does the present respiratory virus season differ from seasons during the pre-COVID era? As a specialist in virus-host interaction, I would like to shed some light on the new dynamics of the respiratory virus season.

The infamous SARS-CoV-2

• Despite limited access to screening tests, analysis of the number of hospital admissions shows that the virus is still going strong.
• It has a strikingly efficient capacity to spread through aerosols, especially as we take refuge indoors to escape the cold.

Resurgence of seasonal flu

• After a hiatus due to health measures, the influenza virus, which causes seasonal flu, has returned with the same force.
• It is once again circulating in different variants belonging to Types (strains) A and B, although scientists believe that one Type B strain, the Yamagata lineage, has disappeared.

And what about RSV?

• Bronchiolitis is characterized by the obstruction of the small airways, which can progress to wheezing or respiratory distress.
• But RSV also severely affects the elderly and adults who are immunocompromised or have existing chronic conditions.
• Admittedly, although these three viruses are attracting attention, other less publicized respiratory viruses are also circulating, demonstrating a diverse viral environment.

SARS-CoV-2 has turned everything upside down

• The challenge is amplified by the extremely high transmission capacity of SARS-CoV-2 compared with influenza and RSV, which makes seasonal management much more complex.
• But today, the picture has become even more complex with the continuing presence of SARS-CoV-2.

Beyond infection

• In addition, it causes long-term consequences after infection, such as post-COVID syndrome (also known as long COVID), which affects millions of people.
• The extent of the consequences of infection and reinfection on human health remains uncertain, as does the effectiveness of vaccines in limiting these effects.

The importance of vaccines

• The final distinction from the pre-pandemic period is the arrival of RSV vaccines.
• However, these two vaccines have not yet been officially recommended.
• The trio of vaccines against COVID-19, influenza and RSV will certainly help to reduce the severe symptoms associated with respiratory virus infections in the coming seasons.

Nathalie Grandvaux received research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé (FRQS), the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Fondation du centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, and the Ministère de l'économie et de l'innovation du Québec.

• NEW YORK, Jan. 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- What if scientists had developed a universal coronavirus vaccine in the years prior to 2020 so that it was available at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic?
• A universal coronavirus vaccine targets parts of the virus that are common to either many or all coronaviruses, thereby offering some degree of protection against a range of strains.
• The experiments simulated what would happen if a universal coronavirus vaccine was available at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• A universal coronavirus vaccine was also shown to be highly cost-effective even if a more specific and more efficacious vaccine came to market.