Respiratory viral infections in children with asthma: do they matter and can we prevent them?

Ahanchian, Hamid; Jones, Carmen M; Chen, Yueh-sheng; Sly, Peter D

OM-85 BV (Broncho-Vaxom) is an immunostimulant extracted from eight common bacterial pathogens of the upper respiratory tract: Haemophilus influenzae, Diplococcus pneumoniae, Klebsiella pneumoniae and ozaenae, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes and viridans, Neisseria catarrhalis and has been used in several countries around the world for as long as 20 years [136] . Recent studies showed that OM-85 BV can reduce the number of acute respiratory infections by 25% to 50% compared with placebo in children with a history of recurrent infection [137] . Of particular interest, Razi et al. showed that children between the age one and six years with recurrent wheezing who were given OM-85 BV had a 40% reduction in the rates of wheezing over the subsequent 12 months, compared to placebo (p < 0.001). In addition, the duration of each wheezing attack was two days shorter in the group given OM-85 BV than in the group given placebo (p = 0.001) [138] .