The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved Pfizer’s vaccine against the respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V., for adults age 60 and older, the second approval granted for shots offering protection from the virus this month.
GSK was the first drugmaker to get the F.D.A.’s permission to market an R.S.V. vaccine on May 3. The vaccines are expected to be available in the fall before the winter R.S.V. season.
Why It Matters: Older adults are at a higher risk.
Each year, about 60,000 adults 65 and older are hospitalized with R.S.V. and about 6,000 to 10,000 die from the virus, the F.D.A. estimated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that in one year, more than 21,000 people in that age group would need to take the GSK vaccine to prevent one R.S.V. death; the number was nearly 25,000 for the Pfizer shot.
The virus was a key driver in the winter’s “tripledemic” of Covid, flu and R.S.V. that was particularly hard on young children, resulting in overwhelmed hospitals.
Infants and toddlers are also at elevated risk; R.S.V. is considered a leading killer of infants globally. Several treatments, including a maternal vaccine and a monoclonal antibody for infants against R.S.V., are under agency review.