Respiratory syncytial virus vaccine development

Development of an RSV vaccine for infants has been hindered by the lack of an ideal animal model that exhibits disease, and the challenge of effective ly immunizing very young infants who are immunologically immature. Neverthe less, significant progress has been made recently in developing live attenu ated viruses and protein subunit vaccine candidates. Numerous vaccine candi dates are currently in early clinical trials. This paper reviews the signif icant obstacles to development of RSV vaccines, and the progress made to da te. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.