A test-negative, case-control study across 14 hospitals in England has found that the RSV pre-F (Abrysvo) vaccine effectively reduced RSV-related hospital admissions in elderly. The findings published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases found the vaccines to be 82% effective in preventing hospital admission for any RSV-related respiratory illness and 87% effective against hospitalization for severe RSV in elderly.
The multicentre test-negative case-control study examined vaccine effectiveness in adults aged 75–79 years who were hospitalized for at least 24 hours with symptoms of acute respiratory infection (ARI) and tested using molecular diagnostic PCR swabs within 48 hours of admission.
In total, 1006 older adults were included in the analysis. Of these, 173 tested positive for RSV, while 833 tested negative for RSV, influenza, and SARS-CoV-2 and served as controls. More than half the participants were women (52.3%), and the mean age was approximately 77.7 years across both groups.
Overall vaccine effectiveness against RSV-associated ARI admissions was 82.3%. Protection was even stronger among patients with severe illness requiring oxygen supplementation, where effectiveness reached 86.7%.
The study also explored how well the vaccine worked across different types of respiratory illness and underlying conditions common among older adults. Among patients admitted with lower respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia, vaccine effectiveness was 88.6%, that indicates strong prevention of more clinically serious presentations.
Effectiveness was 77.4% for hospitalizations which was triggered by exacerbation of chronic lung diseases such as COPD, and 78.8% in admissions associated with worsening heart disease, lung disease, or frailty combined. The effectiveness of vaccine in immunosuppressed patients reached 72.8%, who have historically shown weaker vaccine responses.
This highlight that all these evidence support the continued rollout of RSV vaccination programmes as part of winter respiratory health strategies. Overall, the findings of this study suggest the vaccine could significantly reduce admissions and support better management of chronic disease flare-ups linked to respiratory infections.
Source:
Symes, R., Whitaker, H. J., Ahmad, S., Arnold, D., Banerjee, S., Evans, C. M., Gore, R., Hart, J., Heaney, K., Kon, O. M., Melhuish, A., Ortale Zogaib, M., Pelosi, E., Rahman, N. M., Woltmann, G., McKeever, T., Zambon, M., Watson, C. H., Lim, W. S., … HARISS network collaborators. (2025). Vaccine effectiveness of a bivalent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) pre-F vaccine against RSV-associated hospital admission among adults aged 75-79 years in England: a multicentre, test-negative, case-control study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(25)00546-8
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