New jab to save our kids fighting for life
Karl Stefanovic and wife Jasmine got the scare of their lives last year when their baby girl’s common cold turned into a life-threatening situation.
With alarming swiftness, little Harper was struggling to breathe, her heart rate soared to nearly 200 beats per minute and she had to be taken to hospital as Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) took hold.
She was one of about 12,000 young children who end up in hospital each year with RSV but, the good news is, a vaccine could soon be available.
RSV is the number one cause of hospitalisation for children aged under five.
The virus has killed more than 21 preschoolers in the last decade – and costs our health system $159 million annually.
Yet the Stefanovics had never heard of RSV before Harper was hospitalised.
They said they were sharing their story in the hope it will help other parents understand the realities of the virus and know when to seek help.
“Harper had the sniffles and a cough. Karl and I assumed she just had a bit of a cold. But within hours, she became very sick,” said Mrs Stefanovic.
“It was alarming to see how hard she was working to breathe, with her little ribs sucking in and tummy pulling up into her chest.
“While I knew in my heart that Harper needed medical help, I wasn’t sure at first if I was overreacting. Thankfully, my gut instinct took over and we took her to see our GP.”
Their local doctor gave her oxygen before calling an ambulance to take her to hospital.
“It was a long night as we sat in the hospital ward
with Harper, trying to comfort her as a medical team worked to help her breathe,” said Mrs Stefanovic.
A year on, their now-threeyear-old still has a lingering wheeze and doctors have explained RSV can have a range of long-term health effects.
“We’ll be keeping a close eye on her this winter,” she said. The good news for parents
and children is the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is assessing a new preventive treatment for the condition, developed by pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and AstraZeneca. Their jab can be given to babies at birth and, in a trial of 8000 children with RSV in Europe, it slashed hospitalisation rates by 83 per cent.
The European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada have all already approved the jab for use.
“Our aim is to secure a recommendation and listing (subsidy) for nirsevimab so all children born in Australia have equitable and affordable access to protection from RSV,” a spokeswoman for Sanofi said. To speed up access to the infant vaccine in Australia, experts are call
ing on state governments to consider funding it.
A new report by Evohealth found 12,000 babies aged under 12 months are hospitalised in Australia with RSV each year. As many as one in four of these children will spend time in ICU.
And University of NSW respiratory scientist Dr Nusrat Homaira said 10 per cent of babies hospitalised with RSV in the first two years of their life go on to develop asthma.
Rachel Eyles’s one-year-old baby Levi has already had been hospitalised twice with the infection. He was six weeks old when he first caught RSV. Ms Eyles raced him to hospital in the middle of the night where he stopped breathing twice. “Don’t be afraid to go to the hospital if you do think that your child is having respiratory issues, trust your gut,” Ms Eyles said.