Stockport NHS research team supports groundbreaking study into reducing hospitalisation of infants with respiratory infections

Over 500 babies in the North West, including 60 from families in Stockport supported by the local NHS Trust’s Research and Innovation department, have played their part in a groundbreaking NIHR-supported study which has found that a single dose of a treatment for a respiratory infection in infants can help cut hospital admissions by more than 80%.

RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) is one of the leading causes of hospitalisation in all infants worldwide and affects 90% of children before the age of two. It is estimated that among children in the UK, RSV accounts for around 450,000 GP consultations, 29,000 hospitalisations and 20 to 30 deaths per year, the majority occurring in babies. While the effects of RSV infections are typically mild, for some babies it can cause severe lung problems, such as pneumonia.

Now, the HARMONIE study has shown an 83% reduction of hospitalisations for RSV in infants who had an injection of the antibody nirsevimab. A single dose also reduced hospitalisations due to severe chest infections caused by RSV by 76%, and decreased hospitalisation for all chest infections by 58%.

The findings of the study, which opened in the North West and across the UK last winter, have been published in a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine. The new treatment is approved in the UK and is being considered for a national RSV immunisation programme. Data from the trial has already been used to roll out the jab in the US and Spain this winter.

More than 8,000 infants in the UK and Europe took part, and families in the North West played a big part in this effort, alongside the region’s health and care professionals. The HARMONIE study is a collaboration between Sanofi, its partner AstraZeneca, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), which supported the delivery of the study across 16 sites in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire and Lancashire. 

Liz Stroud, a children’s nurse at Stepping Hill Hospital whose daughter participated in the HARMONIE research, said:

“RSV is a very common thing that we see in the hospital in babies. It can be a very nasty illness, especially in cases where the baby requires CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) treatment, and some babies may need to go on a ventilator. In those cases they really are quite poorly and it can be distressing for everyone involved.

“It’s been amazing to hear the news of these results which are so promising.  It made me feel proud that we’ve helped future babies to be protected against this horrible virus and I’ll definitely tell Ivy about it when she is older.”

Professor Clare Murray, a Consultant in Respiratory Paediatrics at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital (RMCH), part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and a Principal Investigator for the HARMONIE study, said:

“We are proud to have collaborated with research teams across the region to deliver the HARMONIE study and provide opportunities for hundreds of babies to be part of this vital research. It is through their involvement that the study has been able to gather such positive results which reinforce the public health benefit of nirsevimab as an antibody which can help reduce the strain caused to the NHS by RSV every winter and protect babies globally. This is really important evidence with the potential to inform changes in the UK’s immunisation programme for RSV.”