Vaccine could lower RSV infections among Inuit children: researcher

A high rate of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections among Inuit babies in Nunavut could be curbed if health officials give a costly but proven vaccine to them, according to a new study.

The report by Dr. Anna Banerji of St. Michaels Hospital in Toronto, publishedThursday on the website of thePediatric Infectious Disease Journal, suggests that Nunavut health authorities rethink how RSV cases are handled in the territory.

Based on research conducted in 2002 on Baffin Island, Banerji's study found almost one-third of infants are hospitalized with lower respiratory tract infections, which are most often caused by RSV.

The virus is most often associated with premature births in southern Canada, but Banerji said that's not the case in Nunavut.

"When you look in the Arctic, most of the kids are term and they're healthy kids,"Banerji, a pediatric infectious disease specialist,told CBC News.

Banerjisaid many of the cases can be prevented with palivizumab, a vaccine that is proven to reduce RSV infections.

Because the vaccine costs about $7,000 per child, it's usually given only to high-risk infants, with risk determined mostly by birth weight.

That criteria does not reflect the risks faced by infants in the Arctic, Banerji said.

It would be cheaper, she said, to give palivizumab to every six-month-old Baffin Island baby born outside Iqaluit, rather than pay for medevac and hospital costs if those children get sick.

"Even though this vaccine is very expensive, it still saves a lot of money by giving this vaccine to all the kids in the rural areas less than six months of age," she said.

Officials with Nunavut's Department of Health and Social Services told CBC News they need time to look at the research before they can comment.

Late last year, the department declined to be involved in Banerji's continued study on RSV in the circumpolar world. At the time, health officials said the department was doing its own research into the virus.