First RSV Vaccine Brings "Sense of Relief" to Public Health Experts, Says Immunize.org President

"Once we cracked the mystery of how to create the RSV antigen, it opened a flood of activity."

With the US Food and Drug Administration approval of the first-ever vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the public health community is feeling "an enormous sense of relief," said Kelly Moore, MD, MPH, president and chief executive officer of Immunize.org, formerly the Immunization Action Coalition.

Moore, who has broad experience with large-scale immunization campaigns and advocacy at the state, federal, and global levels, explained in a conversation this week with Patient Care,^® that the research path to approval of this RSV vaccine for older adults, and others to follow, has been prolonged and arduous. However, from here on, she adds, we have the "chance to finally do something about this disease," that has been underappreciated even as it claims the lives of as many as 10 000 US adults aged ≥65 years annually. More from the conversation follows below.

Kelly Moore, MD, MPH, is the president and chief executive officer of Immunize.org, a nonprofit immunization education and advocacy organization that supports state and local immunization coalitions and front-line immunization providers. She also is adjunct associate professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Until 2018, Moore served as the director of the Tennessee Immunization Program at the state's department of health. She has served as a voting member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Diseaes Conrol and Prevention and is an advisor to the World Health Organization.