Perspectives on administration of COVID-19 vaccine to pregnant and lactating women: a challenge for low- and middle-income countries
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Version of Record (VoR)
Author(s)
Duarte, Geraldo
Coutinho, Conrado Milani
Rolnik, Daniel Lorber
Quintana, Silvana Maria
E Silva, Ana Cláudia Rabelo
Poon, Liona C
da Silva Costa, Fabrício
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2021
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Women in the pregnancy-puerperal cycle or those who are lactating have been deliberately excluded from participating in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials that aimed to evaluate either the efficacy in inducing the formation of neutralizing antibodies or the investigational products' safety profile. Exclusion of pregnant and lactating women from such studies still certainly inequitably deny these women access to COVID-19 vaccines since these products' availability became increasingly available to non-pregnant people and even during pregnancy in high-income settings. In this clinical opinion article, we discuss aspects of the ...
View more >Women in the pregnancy-puerperal cycle or those who are lactating have been deliberately excluded from participating in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials that aimed to evaluate either the efficacy in inducing the formation of neutralizing antibodies or the investigational products' safety profile. Exclusion of pregnant and lactating women from such studies still certainly inequitably deny these women access to COVID-19 vaccines since these products' availability became increasingly available to non-pregnant people and even during pregnancy in high-income settings. In this clinical opinion article, we discuss aspects of the prolonged pandemic, the emergence of viral variants, the risks of severe complications of COVID-19 in pregnant women, and the disproportionate impact on low- and middle-income countries. We argue that the decision to receive the COVID-19 vaccine should be a joint decision between the pregnant or lactating women and the healthcare providers while considering the available data on vaccine efficacy, safety, the risks of SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnant women, and the woman's individual risk for infection and serious illness. The various types of vaccines already in use and their safety and effectiveness, and the potential risks and benefits of their administration to pregnant or lactating women are reviewed.
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View more >Women in the pregnancy-puerperal cycle or those who are lactating have been deliberately excluded from participating in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials that aimed to evaluate either the efficacy in inducing the formation of neutralizing antibodies or the investigational products' safety profile. Exclusion of pregnant and lactating women from such studies still certainly inequitably deny these women access to COVID-19 vaccines since these products' availability became increasingly available to non-pregnant people and even during pregnancy in high-income settings. In this clinical opinion article, we discuss aspects of the prolonged pandemic, the emergence of viral variants, the risks of severe complications of COVID-19 in pregnant women, and the disproportionate impact on low- and middle-income countries. We argue that the decision to receive the COVID-19 vaccine should be a joint decision between the pregnant or lactating women and the healthcare providers while considering the available data on vaccine efficacy, safety, the risks of SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnant women, and the woman's individual risk for infection and serious illness. The various types of vaccines already in use and their safety and effectiveness, and the potential risks and benefits of their administration to pregnant or lactating women are reviewed.
View less >
Journal Title
AJOG Global Reports
Volume
1
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited.
Subject
Public health
Virology
Health policy
Breastfeeding
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease
Lactation
Pregnancy