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WEDNESDAY December 23, 2020 (HealthDay News) – There is no evidence of placental infection or vertical transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), according to a study published online on December 22 in JAMA network open.
Andrea G. Edlow, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues quantified the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 in maternal and neonatal biofluids, the transplacental passage of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody and incidence of fetoplacental infection in a cohort study involving 127 pregnant women. Overall, 64 and 63 of the women were positive and negative for SARS-CoV-2 respectively by a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test.
Researchers found no detectable viraemia in maternal or umbilical cord blood and no evidence of vertical transmission in viral load tests in 107 women. One of 77 newborns tested in which anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were quantified in umbilical cord blood had detectable immunoglobulin M against the nucleocapsid. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was not detected in any of the 88 placentas tested. Of 37 women with SARS-CoV-2 who underwent antibody tests, 65 and 70 percent had immunoglobulin G and anti-receptor-binding domain anti-nucleocapsid, respectively. The transfer of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies from the mother to the newborn was significantly lower than the transfer of anti-influenza antibodies haemagglutinin A (mean cord-to-mother ratio: 0.72, 0.74 and 1 , 44 for anti-receptor, anti-nucleocapsid and anti-influenza-binding domain immunoglobulin G, respectively).
“Our discovery of compromised mother-to-baby transfer of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in third trimester infections has implications for maternal vaccine delivery,” Edlow said in a statement. “More specifically, he stresses that pregnant women are a key population to be taken into account in the deployment of vaccines.”
Several authors have revealed financial links with the biopharmaceutical and medical technology industries.
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