COVID-19 vaccines and neglected pregnancy: FIGO SMNH Committee Letter of Support

In a correspondence that was published in the Lancet, Dashraath et al.1 advocate to include pregnant women in the phase 3 trial protocols of adenovirus-vectored and protein-based vaccines for COVID-19.

We at the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health Committee strongly endorse this recommendation to recruit pregnant women in COVID-19 vaccine trials. We totally agree with the authors that pregnant women should be regarded as a high-priority group, given the growing evidence that they might be prone to more severe complications of COVID-19 compared to non-pregnant women. As such, excluding them from such trials would hinder our ability as a medical community to reach evidence-based conclusions about the vaccine efficacy and its safety for the mother and her newborn.

References

  1. Dashraath P, Nielsen-Saines K, Madhi SA, Baud D. COVID-19 vaccines and neglected pregnancy. Lancet 2020;396(10252):e22. 

Published

Author

Anwar H. Nassar, MD & Gerhard Theron, MD

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