Maternal RSV vaccination cut infant hospital admissions by 61%

The edition in brief

The clearest finding today is a real-world one. A national test-negative case-control study at 37 UK hospitals enrolled 694 infants under 6 months admitted with acute lower respiratory infection between September 2025 and January 2026. Adjusted effectiveness of maternal bivalent RSVpreF vaccination against RSV hospital admission was 61% (95% CI 38 to 75) up to 6 months, and 76% (54 to 87) up to 3 months. The overall programme effectiveness, including infant monoclonal antibody, was 61% (39 to 75). The American Academy of Pediatrics has published its 2026-27 RSV policy statement alongside this, recommending immunisation for all infants under 8 months entering their first season unless the pregnant parent was vaccinated, and expanding the high-risk criteria for children aged 8 to 19 months entering a second season. A matched case-control study of 1,492 Taiwanese children with laboratory-confirmed influenza found antiviral therapy started within 48 hours of symptom onset was associated with an 81% lower risk of hospitalisation (adjusted odds ratio 0.19, 95% CI 0.14 to 0.27), consistent in children under and over 5 years. A cross-sectional survey of 39,761 Ontario students in grades 4 to 12 found 21.1% used generative AI for emotional support. Those students had clinical-threshold emotional problems at 57.7% versus 29.2% (prevalence ratio 1.98), an association that persisted after adjustment for loneliness and mattering. A pooled ECHO cohort analysis of 3,339 mother-child pairs found no association between prenatal organophosphate exposure and autism-related traits after full adjustment.