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The following text has been machine translated from the German with no human editing.
Every year, it's not just Santa Claus who comes around. With beautiful regularity, respiratory viruses also descend upon us. In harmless cases, the result is a cold, but viruses such as RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) can be particularly dangerous for babies and older people. They are at risk of developing more serious secondary diseases, such as pneumonia, from this widespread pathogen.
Vaccination against the virus is very effective and helps to minimise the risk of severe disease progression. "The vaccine, which was only approved a season ago, is recommended by the Standing Committee on Vaccination for healthy people aged 75 and over, and for people with serious underlying conditions such as , for example, a weakened immune system, aged 60 and over," explains Martina Sester, Professor of Transplantation and Infection Immunology at Saarland University. Most adults have already had at least one infection in their lifetime, and vaccination at an advanced age helps the immune system to "boost" its defences against the virus once again, similar to what happens with the booster vaccinations against SARS-CoV-2.
"But especially for those who need protection most urgently, the immunocompromised, there has been no reliable data on the protective effect of vaccination," the expert continues. Although it stands to reason that people with weakened immune systems, for example after an organ transplant or due to a chronic illness, also benefit from vaccination, this has not been known for certain until now.
Together with her doctoral student Saskia Bronder and other colleagues from the Homburg Transplant Centre, Martina Sester therefore investigated how vaccination works in immunocompromised individuals and how they respond to it. In addition to a control group with intact immune systems (52 people), they investigated the efficacy and tolerability of a common vaccine in immunosuppressed individuals who had undergone kidney transplants (46 people), lung transplants (30) and those suffering from chronic kidney disease (19).
"The study participants already had measurable baseline immunity before vaccination," said Saskia Bronder. This is because all humans have come into contact with RSV at some point in their lives. After vaccination, Saskia Bronder, Martina Sester and their colleagues observed a particular increase in CD4 T cells in the vaccinated individuals. These "helper cells" ensure that intruders such as the RS virus are detected and can then be fought off by other parts of the immune system. The number of antibodies against a protein that the virus uses to attach itself to a cell also almost doubled in all groups after vaccination compared to the control group. The side effects were very moderate. The most common side effect reported by the patients was mild pain around the injection site. No serious complications occurred.
"In summary, we found that vaccination against the RS virus triggers a very good immune response even in the particularly vulnerable group of immunocompromised individuals, and that it is very well tolerated," says Martina Sester, summarising the results. Saskia Bronder and her colleagues have thus closed an important gap in our knowledge, meaning that although the next RSV infection is as certain as Christmas, we can look forward to it with greater serenity than in all the years before.
Original publication:
Bronder S, Abu-Omar A, Lennartz S, Tschausowsky D, Radun R, Fliser D, Schmidt T, Wilkens H, Schmit D, Sester M, Cellular and humoral immunogenicity of respiratory syncytial virus vaccination in solid organ transplant recipients, American Journal of Transplantation, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2025.09.023 .
Further information:
Prof. Dr. Martina Sester
Tel.: (06841) 1623557
Email: martina.sester(at)uks.eu
Saskia Bronder
Tel.: (06841) 16 23295
Email: saskia.bronder(at)uks.eu
