A Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccination programme will now be included as an essential service for GPs.
GPs have been asked to vaccinate older adults and the infant vaccination programme will see women offered RSV vaccination in each pregnancy from 28 weeks gestation, within maternity services.
RSV causes up to 15,000 babies under six months to be hospitalised in England every year and in winter, as many as one in six of all UK hospital admissions of babies and children are due to bronchiolitis with 80% of cases are associated with RSV. For older adults in the UK, it is estimated that RSV leads to 175,000 GP visits and 14,000 hospital admissions annually.
The vaccine used for the campaign is the bivalent recombinant vaccine developed by Pfizer called Abrysvo.
