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Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of severe lower respiratory tract infections in infants, and there is no vaccine available. In early life, the most important contributors to protection against infectious diseases are the innate immune response and maternal antibodies. However, antibody‐mediated protection against RSV disease is incompletely understood, as both antibody levels and neutralisation capacity correlate poorly with protection. Since antibodies also mediate natural killer (NK) cell activation, we investigated whether this functionality correlates with RSV disease.

We performed an observational case–control study including infants hospitalised for RSV infection, hernia surgery or RSV‐negative respiratory viral infections. We determined RSV antigen‐specific antibody levels in plasma using a multiplex immunoassay. Subsequently, we measured the capacity of these …