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The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday released a new guideline advising pregnant women to avoid taking the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine unless they are at high risk or fall into a category at increased risk of disease. The guide was not released due to observations of pregnant women falling ill after receiving the vaccine, but rather due to a lack of data on the vaccine’s effects on pregnant women, which were not among the test trials.
Ultimately, the WHO argued that there was not enough information on how the Moderna vaccine (known as mRNA-1273) will affect pregnant women, especially in this regard. which concerns the potential risks to women themselves or their fetuses. The WHO has noted that pregnant women are at a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 and that the disease is associated with an increased likelihood of premature births.
Although studies in pregnant animals have not yielded any worrisome results, the WHO believes that more research on pregnant women will need to be done in the coming months before definitive conclusions can be drawn.
“In the meantime, the WHO recommends not using mRNA-1273 [Moderna’s vaccine] during pregnancy, unless the benefit of immunizing a pregnant woman outweighs the potential risks of the vaccine, such as for health workers, “writes the WHO.” Information and, if possible, advice on the lack of safety and efficacy data for pregnant women should be provided. “
The guidelines added: “WHO does not recommend pregnancy tests before vaccination. WHO does not recommend delaying pregnancy after vaccination.”
This guide is similar to the one published by the WHO earlier this month on the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, known as BNT162b2.
The guidelines are not intended to be universally applied. The WHO added that the Moderna vaccine could still be given to pregnant women if they “are at risk of high exposure (eg health workers)”. He made a similar point in his advice on the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine earlier this month, explaining that if “a pregnant woman has an inevitable risk of high exposure (eg a health worker), vaccination may be considered in discussion with her health care provider. “
As Nicole Karlis of the Salon covered last month, Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine trials up to this point – as well as other major vaccine trials – have not included pregnant women, continuing a long-standing trend in the American health care system in which pregnant women are actively kept out of clinical trials of vaccines and other critical research. This practice is criticized by many experts in maternal and reproductive health because it means that pregnant women may need certain drugs but will not have complete information about the potential benefits and risks of their use.
Modern and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines are mRNA vaccines, which means they take a single stranded RNA molecule and inject it into the body. These vaccines cause the body’s own cells to produce a protein known as Spike which is associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which the immune system then learns to identify and protect. Spike is the protein that causes the tiny pins to protrude around the sphere of the virus like thorns on a sea urchin, allowing it to attach to human cells.
The WHO has noted that because the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines do not contain live viruses and the mRNA breaks down quickly, there may be less cause for concern.
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