What hap­pens when you com­bine a coun­try mu­sic star with a trend­ing health is­sue and throw in a good mea­sure of Tik­Tok and In­sta­gram?

For Sanofi’s “Know­ing RSV” cam­paign, it’s meant broad­er aware­ness for a com­mon virus that many par­ents don’t know much about. One com­mon mis­con­cep­tion, for ex­am­ple, is that res­pi­ra­to­ry syn­cy­tia virus (RSV) on­ly af­fects in­fants who are born pre­ma­ture­ly or have oth­er health is­sues. How­ev­er, 72% of in­fants hos­pi­tal­ized with RSV are healthy, full-term ba­bies, said Ayan­na San­tos, head of Sanofi’s RSV fran­chise in the US.

“The thing about RSV is a physi­cian can’t nec­es­sar­i­ly pre­dict for any giv­en in­fant in front of them, which in­fant is go­ing to be the one to get se­ri­ous­ly ill,” she said.

The coun­try mu­sic star speak­ing out as part of the cam­paign is Jim­mie Allen, who along with his wife Alex­is Allen, is open­ing up to the me­dia and on­line video about their fam­i­ly’s ex­pe­ri­ence when then six-week-old daugh­ter Zara con­tract­ed RSV and was hos­pi­tal­ized — and what they didn’t know at the time.

In a video on the “Know­ing RSV” web­site, Allen says, “I had this in­ner di­a­logue on re­peat: ‘was there some­thing else we could have done?’ But as it turns out, we were not alone. Not even by a long shot.”

The Allen fam­i­ly am­bas­sador­ship and sev­er­al oth­er so­cial me­dia in­flu­encer par­ents on Tik­Tok and In­sta­gram are help­ing to raise aware­ness about com­mon mis­con­cep­tions about RSV, along with the ac­tu­al facts and symp­toms to watch out for. One mom in­flu­encer re­layed a sto­ry to San­tos about one of her fol­low­ers who told her it was thanks to the in­flu­encer’s RSV videos that the young mom rec­og­nized it in her own son and got him quick med­ical at­ten­tion.

As the cam­paign rolled out, a spike in RSV hos­pi­tal­iza­tions among chil­dren drew even more at­ten­tion to the is­sue. The re­sult? Sanofi notched 42 mil­lion views on Tik­Tok videos tagged #Know­ingRSV, jump­ing to  81.2 mil­lion views through No­vem­ber.

The cam­paign, which will con­tin­ue to run through March, in­cludes three web­sites in Eng­lish, Span­ish and tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese, dig­i­tal ads, so­cial me­dia posts on Tik­Tok, Face­book and Snapchat, San­tos said.

“We want to get to mil­len­ni­al moms — and fu­ture moms — so mil­len­ni­als and old­er Gen Z, and reach them where they spend their time,” she said, adding that the cam­paign is “mo­ti­vat­ing peo­ple to learn more, and it’s help­ing them to bet­ter un­der­stand and be ready so that if some­thing hap­pens, they know what to do.”

An­oth­er aim of the cam­paign is mak­ing sure it reach­es par­ents of col­or. As San­tos point­ed out, 50% of moth­ers in the US are women of col­or. So Sanofi worked to in­clude di­ver­si­ty among the spokes­peo­ple — coun­try singer Allen is Black — and is al­so reach­ing out di­rect­ly to African Amer­i­can, His­pan­ic, Chi­nese, Alaskan and Na­tive Amer­i­can au­di­ences.

“We’ve tak­en ad­di­tion­al steps to make sure that the di­ver­si­ty of how we speak to peo­ple or show peo­ple in­for­ma­tion around this dis­ease helps pull through the de­sire to learn more,” she said.

Sanofi and As­traZeneca are co-de­vel­op­ing RSV an­ti­body can­di­date nir­se­vimab for in­fants and chil­dren up to 24 months. It would be the first sin­gle-dose RSV pre­ven­ta­tive for ba­bies in the US, among a new­ly crowd­ed field of hope­ful RSV play­ers.

Pfiz­er and GSK are both de­vel­op­ing vac­cines with the FDA cur­rent­ly re­view­ing both Pfiz­er and GSK bi­o­log­ic ap­pli­ca­tions for their re­spec­tive vac­cines to treat old­er adults. Both of those re­views have de­ci­sion dead­line dates in May. Pfiz­er is al­so de­vel­op­ing its RSV vac­cine for use in preg­nant women to pro­tect in­fants up to six months af­ter birth. Mod­er­na re­cent­ly re­port­ed pos­i­tive da­ta for its RSV vac­cine in old­er adults and is prepar­ing for FDA sub­mis­sion.

Sanofi and As­traZeneca’s nir­se­vimab is not a vac­cine, but an an­ti­body de­signed to help in­fants and chil­dren up to 24 months weath­er their first and sec­ond RSV sea­son­al out­breaks. The FDA ac­cept­ed the phar­ma pair’s ap­pli­ca­tion for nir­se­vimab ear­li­er this month, with a pro­ject­ed de­ci­sion date for the third quar­ter. Nir­se­vimab was al­ready grant­ed mar­ket­ing au­tho­riza­tion in the Eu­ro­pean Union and the UK un­der ac­cel­er­at­ed re­view and the brand name Bey­for­tus.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The sto­ry was up­dat­ed to clar­i­fy nir­se­vimab’s ac­cel­er­at­ed re­view and brand name in the EU and UK.

Abbott is renewing its concussion awareness campaign, weeks after the company received FDA clearance for its lab-based traumatic brain injury (TBI) blood test.

The unbranded campaign features three generations of the Melon family — animated talking melons who slip on toys or take a spill while playing pickleball.

“Don’t mess with your melon. If you hit it, get it checked,” a narrator says.

A California judge will allow a plaintiff in a state court case to introduce expert testimony connecting a potential carcinogen in former blockbuster medicine Zantac to cancer.

The order was handed down on Thursday from state judge Evelio Grillo, who is now allowing both parties to introduce expert testimony in an upcoming trial after what’s known as a Sargon hearing, where a judge determines the admissibility of expert witnesses and expert opinions.