Pregnant women should NOT take Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, says WHO

World Health Organization (WHO) warns Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine should not be used on pregnant women – affecting more than three million pregnant women in the United States

No vaccine trials to date have included pregnant women – and they are not expected to do so until the first trimester of 2021 – meaning there is no safety data, according to the WHO .

The researchers want to determine that the vaccines are safe and effective in healthy people who are not pregnant before testing them in expectant mothers and their unborn children.

“ Although pregnancy puts women at a higher risk of severe COVID-19, the use of this vaccine in pregnant women is currently not recommended, unless they are at high risk ‘ ‘Says the WHO statement released on Tuesday.

High-risk pregnant women include those who are frontline health workers or who have underlying conditions.

These are the same guidelines the WHO released for the Pfizer vaccine three weeks earlier.

But U.S. doctors have objected to excluding pregnant women from vaccine recommendations because of their high risk of serious illness from COVID-19, and say patients should decide for themselves whether or not they want to be vaccinated.

In a virtual briefing on Tuesday, WHO director of immunization Kate O’Brien stressed that clinical trials of the Moderna vaccine are needed in pregnant women.

“There is no reason to think there could be a problem during pregnancy, we just recognize that the data is not there at the moment,” she said.

However, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology strongly opposed exclusion of pregnant women from vaccination trials and counseling.

In a statement, the organization wrote that pregnant women should choose for themselves whether or not they want to be vaccinated and be informed of any risks.

“Pregnant people are more likely to have certain manifestations of serious illnesses associated with COVID-19 infection, such as intensive care admission, mechanical ventilation and death,” the statement said.

In addition, more than half of pregnant women also fall into another high priority category, including frontline workers and those with underlying illnesses.

“ACOG continues to urge that for pregnant women, the decision to vaccinate should be left to each patient in consultation with her trusted clinician.

There are currently no data on the number of women who became pregnant during the Moderna coroanvirus vaccine trial.

However, during the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee meeting on whether or not to approve Pfizer’s vaccine – the only other vaccine approved in the United States – researchers revealed that 23 pregnancies had had held during the trial on November 14.

Of the pregnancies, 12 were in the vaccinated group and 11 were in the placebo group.

In the vaccinated group, four were immunized before their last menstrual period, four within 30 days of their last menstrual period, and four more than 30 days after.

In the placebo group, two pups were inoculated before their last menstrual period, six within 30 days of their last menstrual period and two more than 30 days after.

No results are known yet except for a woman in the placebo group who had a miscarriage within 20 weeks of gestation.

It is not uncommon not to include pregnant women in vaccine trials.

For example, pregnant women were never included in the flu vaccine studies, but were encouraged by doctors to get it after years of data showing the vaccine behaved normally in healthy participants. health.

Doctors say they are concerned that pregnant women are not getting the coronavirus vaccine because millions of pregnant or breastfeeding women make up the workforce.

In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 75 percent of health workers are women and about 330,000 health workers “could be pregnant or recently postpartum by the time the vaccine is implemented. “.

What’s more, CDC data shows pregnant COVID-19 patients are twice as likely to be admitted to ICUs and three times as likely to need mechanical ventilation than non-pregnant women with the disease.

Recently, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine called on the federal government to include pregnant and breastfeeding women in vaccine trials.

And, in a STAT News editorial, three Johns Hopkins professors urged the FDA to allow pregnant or postpartum healthcare workers to receive the vaccine.

“We do not agree with the position of the British authorities which could prevent pregnant or breastfeeding health workers from getting vaccinated regardless of their situation,” they wrote.

“If we are not able to offer vaccines to pregnant or breastfeeding frontline health workers, it is the responsibility of health care systems to offer them alternative protection strategies such as protection, reassignment or discharge paid.

“Yet this may not be a viable strategy for most healthcare facilities, which cannot afford to operate without a significant portion of their workforce.

In the UK, the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) released guidelines last month making it clear that pregnant women should not be vaccinated until after giving birth.

The government has said this applies to vaccines that have been or may be approved, including those manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca Plc.

Women who think they are pregnant are advised to delay vaccination until they are sure they are not, and women who are trying to have a baby should not be vaccinated either.

“Currently there is not enough evidence to recommend vaccinating pregnant women against COVID-19,” Dr Mary Ross Davie of the UK’s Royal College of Midwives said at the time.

“There is no evidence of harm, but there is also no current evidence of safety as pregnant women have, as usual, been excluded from all vaccine trials.