Respiratory syncytial virus vaccines: can we improve on nature?

Both inactivated and live RSV candidate vaccines will continue to be tested in infants and young children. Sequential vaccination, with a first dose of live attenuated vaccine followed by boosting with intramuscular subunit vaccines, also is an option. We are encouraged by the fact that influenza subunit and cold-adapted live vaccines are both safe and immunogenic in infants and children of the same age group. Testing of RSV vaccines must proceed at a slower pace because of the phenomenon of vaccine-induced enhanced disease. Curiously, this phenomenon of disease enhancement has not been demonstrated in the case of inactivated influenza or parainfluenza virus vaccines. Another important step in the development of RSV vaccines is to determine a target population. Clearly, children with underlying cardiac or pulmonary disease would benefit from an RSV vaccine. It can be expected that 1% of all infants in the general population will be hospitalized for RSV infection during their first year of life. These infants also would appear to be good candidates for an RSV vaccine, but it is unclear how they would be identified before infection occurs. Immunization of the entire population of infants to protect these 1% would be feasible only if the vaccine were inexpensive and easily administered.