Article content Quebec public health authorities on Monday launched the annual influenza and COVID-19 vaccination campaign, administering the shots first to people in long-term care before making the vaccines available for free to the general population as of Oct. 16. And for the first time this year, medical staff will be immunizing infants up the age of 18 months against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a seasonal pathogen that often leads to overcrowded pediatric emergency rooms during the winter.
Health Canada has approved a monoclonal antibody therapy, Nirsevimab, which is now being injected into premature infants in Quebec before they leave the hospital. And as of Nov. 4, all babies born in hospital and all other infants considered at risk up to the age of 18 months will be given Nirsevimab, which has been shown in Spain to have reduced RSV-related hospitalizations by 83 per cent .
“This year, at least in pediatrics, we are hopeful that with Nirsevimab being offered, which is the monoclonal antibody against RSV, we are going to see a decrease in those types of emergency consultations and admissions,” Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, chair of the Quebec Immunization Committee, told a news conference in Montreal. “So if the virus were to invade the nose or the lungs (of infants), the antibodies would come and coat the virus, so that it could not replicate and would prevent severe infections,” she explained.
Quach-Thanh added that RSV “was the virus that was overwhelm.
