A National Health Research Institute team has develop a medication that could suppress the human orthopneumovirus, which targets the upper respiratory tract, and lower the total number of cells inflamed by the disease.
The virus is the main cause of severe lower respiratory tract infection in infants and young children.
It is responsible for the hospitalization of 1,000 infants annually in Taiwan, 90 percent of whom are children under the age of two, the institute said on Monday last week.
About 10 percent of children younger than five who contract the virus develop a serious illness and the mortality rate is up to 1 percent, it said.
The disease progresses quite quickly, with patients going from running a fever to having severe difficulty breathing within two days, and from there it can develop into bronchitis or pneumonia, the institute said.
The team, led by National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology researcher Chou Yen-hung (周彥宏), has developed sample vaccines from Ad-RSV, or Adenoviral vectors carrying RSV F genes, which can repress the number of viral cells merging with the respiratory tract and reducing the severity of the symptoms, the research institute said.
“Lab tests using mice showed that Ad-RSV could activate TH1 cells and energize the mice’s immune systems,” Chou said.
The vaccine, which won the Ministry of Technology and Science’s 2018 Technology Transfer Award, is scheduled to start clinical trials at the end of the year, Chou said.
If successful, infants could be inoculated with the vaccine to prevent them from contracting the disease or develop a milder version of it, Chou said.
Human orthopneumovirus is not season-based and could be contracted year-round, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society of Taiwan said.
Mothers’ milk is rich in immunoglobulin and could help lower an infant’s chances of contracting the disease or the severity of infection, the society said.
The primary mode of transmission of the virus is through hands, and those working in the medical care field are especially prone to infection, although second-hand smoke from an infected person could also help transmit the disease, the society said.
All medical personnel should wash their hands before they come into contact with a patient with the virus or equipment being used in the patient’s treatment, it added.
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