By Trevor Hunnicutt and Michael Erman
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The makers of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) immunization for infants that has been in tight supply will deliver an additional 230,000 doses in January, the White House said on Thursday, after U.S. government officials met with the companies to discuss meeting winter demand.
According to a statement from one of the drug’s makers – France’s Sanofi – the additional supply means the companies will deliver 1.4 million doses of the drug in the U.S. this year, over 25% more shots than they had originally planned.
Officials from President Joe Biden’s administration have been holding regular meetings with Sanofi and AstraZeneca co-developed the RSV shot for infants and toddlers called Beyfortus, in order to improve the supply.
The new Beyfortus doses are from supply originally intended for the Southern Hemisphere RSV season, which will be replenished before that season starts later next year, a Sanofi spokesperson said.
“Families must be able to access the RSV vaccine. That’s exactly why the administration has been urging manufacturers to produce and release enough RSV vaccines to meet demand we’re seeing,” White House spokesperson Kelly Scully said.
RSV is the top cause of hospitalization among infants, leading to around 1% to 3% of children under 12 months of age being hospitalized in the United States each year, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The announcement of the 230,000 doses comes after officials met on Wednesday with Sanofi and AstraZeneca, the White House said. It follows an earlier commitment for 77,000 more doses.
U.S. health regulators approved Beyfortus, an injected antibody therapy, in July to prevent RSV in infants and toddlers. AstraZeneca and Sanofi confirmed that additional doses of Beyfortus will be available in mid-January.
The expanded supply means the U.S. has the capacity to provide Beyfortus to 40 percent of the birth cohort this RSV season.
The companies had originally projected that the U.S. would need 1.1 million doses for 2023-2024 RSV season, Sanofi said. They are working to further improve supply for next year.
“The demand for Beyfortus has far surpassed any previous standard,” an AstraZeneca spokesperson said in a statement.
The drug has been in tight supply since October, just as U.S. cases of RSV began to trend upward. While cases have continued to rise sharply since mid-October, they are still below multi-year highs hit last winter, government data shows.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said earlier this week that RSV cases in the country are likely nearing their peak, and may already have peaked in southern U.S. states.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Michael Erman; Aditional reporting by Katharine Jackson; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Rami Ayyub, Bill Berkrot and David Gregorio)
