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This year, older adults will be encouraged to get not one, not two, but three vaccines to protect against three common respiratory viruses that sicken millions of Americans each year and become increasingly dangerous as we age.
Most are familiar with the annual flu shot — roughly half of adults rolled up their sleeves for one last year. The same can be said for the COVID-19 vaccine, which just received an update and is now available.
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New to the menu this year is a vaccine for RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is often associated with young kids but sends as many as 160,000 adults 65 and older to the hospital each year and kills as many as 10,000.
“We have learned over the last 20 years that year in and year out, [RSV] probably causes as much illness as influenza,” says William Schaffner, M.D., who is with the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and is a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Many Adults Want RSV Vaccine
A poll from the University of Michigan’s National Poll on Health Aging found that 52 percent of Americans between the ages of 60 and 80 have heard about the new vaccine for RSV. And many of them are interested in getting the vaccine, including:
- 60 percent of people ages 60 to 69
- 70 percent of people ages 70 to 80
- 65 percent of people with a chronic health condition
Source: National Poll on Healthy Aging
RSV hit the U.S. especially hard last fall — right around the same time COVID-19 and flu cases gained steam. (Early estimates show the flu killed as many as 58,000 Americans in the 2022-23 season; meanwhile, COVID-19 sent tens of thousands of people to the hospital each week last fall.) This led some to dub the viral convergence a tripledemic.
“It was definitely really, really concerning to watch,” says Rachel Presti, M.D., head of clinical research on infectious diseases and an associate professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
This year, though, there’s a new tool to help fight back: a vaccine for RSV — the first ever.
Two versions were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May and are expected to be available by the fall; both are for adults 60 and older.
When should you get the RSV vaccine?
Health officials are encouraging older adults to talk to their doctor to see whether the RSV vaccine is right for them. If that answer is yes, Presti says, there’s no need to delay.
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