{"id":101580,"date":"2025-08-27T20:05:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T20:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/101580\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T20:05:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T20:05:05","slug":"rsv-prevention-program-expands-to-include-seniors-over-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/101580\/","title":{"rendered":"RSV prevention program expands to include seniors over 75"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ontario is expanding the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) prevention program to now include people 75 years of age and older starting this fall, the Ministry of Health announced in <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ontario.ca\/en\/release\/1006369\/ontario-expanding-rsv-immunization-to-protect-more-seniors-this-fall\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/news.ontario.ca\/en\/release\/1006369\/ontario-expanding-rsv-immunization-to-protect-more-seniors-this-fall\">a media release<\/a> Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Immunizations against the virus causing severe respiratory illness will now be available through the province\u2019s publicly funded immunization programs to this age group in this expansion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones said this step was taken to help protect more seniors and avoid unnecessary hospitalizations in the coming fall and winter seasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cOur government is ensuring the most vulnerable have access to the tools they need to protect themselves and their family during respiratory illness season,\u201d Jones said in the media release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The program builds on the previous year\u2019s expansion, which included high-risk adults aged 60 to 74 years of age who are residents of long-term care or retirement homes, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cp24.com\/news\/canada\/2024\/10\/01\/protection-against-rsv-coming-soon-for-all-infants-in-ontario-quebec-nunavut\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cp24.com\/news\/canada\/2024\/10\/01\/protection-against-rsv-coming-soon-for-all-infants-in-ontario-quebec-nunavut\/\">infants up to eight months old<\/a> in their first RSV season and high-risk children up to 24 months old in their second RSV season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Pregnant women will continue to have the option to get the RSV vaccine, which can help provide protection to infants at birth, the statement read. The province says it will provide more information on where families can get the RSV immunization in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Chief Medical Executive of Ontario Health, Dr. Chris Simpson called RSV \u201ca major contributor to illness and hospitalizations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThis vaccine coverage will save lives and help to improve quality of life for older Ontarians by reducing the risk of serious illness and complications,\u201d Simpson said. \u201cIt also will reduce the number of hospitalizations, which means more capacity in our health-care system during the always busy winter season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ontario is expanding the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) prevention program to now include people 75 years of age&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[712,49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-101580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}