SPONSORED | Meet the Wits professor pioneering the vaccine to prevent stillbirths among pregnant women
have made recommendations to the World Health Organisation on the use of the life-saving pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, rotavirus vaccine, and influenza vaccine for pregnant women.Vida’s clinical development of a vaccine to safeguard pregnant women against stillbirth and infant death resulted in the world’s first test of a maternal multi-valent Group B Streptococcus vaccine. If it’s 80% effective and reaches 90% of women, it could potentially prevent 231,000 infant and maternal GBS cases.
GBS is carried by up to a third of pregnant women . It’s the babies they carry who are more vulnerable to the infection, as their immature immune systems cannot fight the multiplying bacteria. If untreated, GBS can cause serious infections such as meningitis and septicaemia in young infants, and can also cause stillbirths. Babies surviving this infection can develop permanent problems including hearing or vision loss, or cerebral palsy. GBS also accounts for more than the combined neonatal deaths from tetanus, pertussis [whooping cough] and respiratory syncytial virus. Maternal vaccines are already in use or further advanced in development.
The clinical development of a multi-valent GBS vaccine, now under way at Vida, is especially important as the highest incidence of invasive GBS in young infants globally has been reported in SA for the past 20 years. As we continue to look to vaccinology to play its part at this critical time in medical and scientific work, let us remain hopeful, as there are experienced minds at work to enable us to secure future health care solutions. In this regard Madhi’s research unit is preparing to launch the first Covid-19 vaccine studies in Africa soon.
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