As a leading Canberra obstetrician, Australian Medical Association President Steve Robson is used to holding life in his hands.
But when his son Tim, now a healthy 16-year-old, contracted respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as a toddler, Professor Robson was forced to stare death in the face.
"I find I get emotional, literally to this day, thinking about how we almost lost him," Professor Robson said.
"It was quite possibly the most extraordinarily distressing thing I've been through with my family and, you know, I still find it traumatic."
Now, with RSV wreaking havoc with the nation's hospital systems, the federal government is considering listing a number of vaccines to prevent the spread of viral infection on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and National Immunisation Schedule. This would make them available cheaply or at no cost to those most vulnerable.
RSV is a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms, but can be serious. Infants and older people are at increased risk.
Professor Robson said he would like to see RSV vaccines added to the NIS to make them more accessible to young children, pregnant women and older people.
"If we can find a way of protecting, of giving parents that kind of confidence and protect our kids moving forward, I think it'd be great," he told The Canberra Times.
In 2009, Professor Robson was at the peak of his private obstetrics practice when his son became ill.
He recalls coming home after a long shift and being kept awake by the 20-month-old's persistent cough.
"He just got worse and worse at home over a few days and ultimately, essentially collapsed at home," Professor Robson said.
At the emergency department, Tim was seen by an on-staff paediatrician known to the Robson family who, upon observing the toddler's condition and hearing his hacking cough, immediately directed that he be admitted.
He spent almost two weeks in the Canberra Hospital's paediatric high-dependency unit.
Professor Robson recalls his son being so unwell that the doctors were "unable to even get a drip into a vein to give him fluids".
With RSV cases on the rise in the ACT and across Australia, he said, all efforts to protect vulnerable infants and older people were vital.
"It's an awful thing to get and a lot of parents will have had my experience of really sick kids," Professor Robson said.
The latest data from the Health Department's National Communicable Disease Surveillance Dashboard shows that there have already been 1440 cases of RSV recorded in the territory for 2024 to date, more than the whole of 2022 when 1421 cases were reported. That increased to 2048 in 2023.
Nationally, there have been 86,287 RSV cases reported in 2024 to date.
A surge of COVID-19, flu and RSV cases last week sent the South Australian hospital system into a code yellow or internal emergency last week, meaning all category 3 and 4 elective surgeries were cancelled. The ACT this week followed suit, moving to an amber alert in response to the spike in respiratory illness cases being treated locally.
While a vaccine called Beyfortus (Nirsevimab) is available to protect newborns, infants and toddlers with health vulnerabilities, and is about 80 per cent effective at preventing young infants from being hospitalised with RSV, it is in short supply.
Some parents have been able to secure doses of the vaccine, which costs about $600 for two doses, privately but for the most part it is only accessible through limited state and territory programs for the most vulnerable infants.
"That's going to be a price disincentive to lots of people in a cost-of-living crisis," Professor Robson said.
"When we're seeing all these pressures on the health system beyond just the human cost, maybe it's time to review the guidelines and look at perhaps making RSV vaccines available to a wider range of Australians."
The Canberra Times can reveal that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee is considering listing Beyfortus on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which would make it cheaply available across Australia, pending supply.
The PBAC will also consider listing Arexvy (RXV PRE-F3), an RSV vaccine which the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Vaccines recommends for all adults aged 75 and over, and those at increased risk from age 60, on the NIP.
It will also consider a resubmitted application by Pfizer for Abrysvo, an RSV vaccine recently approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for use in pregnant women between 24 and 36 weeks gestation, to be listed on the NIP, at its June meeting.
A Health Department spokesperson said the prevention and treatment of RSV "is a priority for the Australian government", which can only list a vaccine on the NIP when recommended by the independent PBAC.
RSV Awareness Week runs until Friday, with organisers encouraging the widespread uptake of vaccination for infants.
