STOP RSV

Let the Science Talk!

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.2 in the five years remaining to 2030 will require a roughly one third reduction in global child deaths—from the current 5 million to 3.3 million.* Action is most urgently needed in the 60 countries off track to meet the target, including 45 in Africa, as reported by UNICEF

With child deaths projected to rise by more than 200,000 in 2025 to 4.8 million, and with global health financing under pressure, urgent action is needed to scale interventions that can reduce child mortality quickly, cost-effectively, and sustainably, especially in the off-track countries.

Expanding coverage of vaccines that prevent pneumonia—the leading infectious killer of children under five—is a critical opportunity. In 2023, pneumonia caused an estimated 610,000 child deaths, with 30% occurring among newborns and 70% among children aged 1–59 months, according to the Global Burden of Disease. 

Although vaccines have driven roughly 40% of the decline in child mortality since 1990, pneumonia vaccines have fallen short of their lifesaving potential due to delayed introduction and low coverage.

Of the 14 vaccines that have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years, pneumonia vaccines account for just 3%, including 2.85 million lives saved by the Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine and 1.6 million by the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV). Yet new estimates indicate that scaling PCV and new Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines to full coverage could prevent 3.4 million child deaths by 2045. 

With PCV coverage at 67%, far below the IA2030 target of 90%, and no low- or middle-income country apart from Brazil introducing the RSV vaccine, closing these gaps could dramatically increase the contribution of pneumonia vaccines to the child mortality reductions required for SDG achievement.

Members

To accelerate uptake of RSV vaccines, the Stop RSV: Let the Science Talk! initiative will bring together leading scientific experts in RSV vaccination to share their views on the impact of these vaccines. Content will be distributed directly to policy makers and other decision-making audiences.

Goal 

The group will be guided by an overarching goal:

Increase awareness of the new RSV maternal vaccine and its impact on saving lives and reducing healthcare costs to motivate governments with large numbers of RSV hospitalizations and deaths to commit to introducing RSV vaccine by 2030.

Countries targeted will include those with more than 400,000 child RSV episodes and high coverage of four antenatal visits (ANC) among pregnant women, including:

• Egypt (698,000 RSV/90% ANC)
• Philippines 561,000 RSV/83% ANC)
• India (6.2M RSV/58% ANC)
• Mexico (530,000 RSV/94% ANC)
• South Africa (RSV 413,231/76% ANC) 
• Brazil (790,000 RSV/92% ANC) Note Brazil introduced RSV in December 2025. 

An additional eight countries who are also members of the Maternal Immunisation Readiness Network in Africa & Asia (MIRNA) will be targeted, including Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Burkina Faso, and Nigeria. Close partnership with MIRNA will ensure these efforts are complementary.

*In 2030 there will be an estimated 131,000,000 live births according to UN World Population Prospects. Achieving a child mortality rate of 25 child deaths for every 1,000 babies born in 2030 translates into 3.3 million child deaths in that year.