Infants who received the RSV antibody nirsevimab were prescribed noticeably fewer antibiotics for respiratory infections than infants who did not, according to a study of 15,341 babies by researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The mechanism is not complicated. Preventing the viral illness prevents the clinical encounters that generate the prescriptions. RSV can mimic bacterial illness and can also lead to it, through ear infections and pneumonia. Roughly half of children hospitalized with RSV, and nearly a third of those who show up at outpatient clinics with it, receive an antibiotic.
