England will find out what is the best interval between doses of anti-coronavirus vaccine for pregnant women. This was reported by the government of the country.
The study will involve more than 600 healthy participants from 18 to 44 years old and from 13 to 34 weeks of pregnancy at the time of vaccination. Participants will be recruited from 13 centers in England and divided into two groups: one will be vaccinated with an interval of 4-6 weeks between doses, the second – 8-12 weeks. Vaccinations will begin in mid-August.
Comirnaty (from Pfizer-BioNTech) and Spikevax (from Moderna) are used, but other vaccines may also be included as they are approved. Participants will visit medics nine times and will be required to fill out a diary between visits for any symptoms. They will be given a 24-hour number to contact the study authors at any time.
The effectiveness of the vaccine and the development of a child under one year old will be studied. Blood will be taken from pregnant women and newborns for analysis, as well as samples of breast milk. The first results on any adverse events are expected by the end of the year, and data on the immune response in the first quarter of 2022.
The authors of the Preg-CoV study from St George’s University of London hope the results will convince pregnant women of the safety of vaccination. Public Health England statistics showed that most women “in position” who were hospitalized in Britain with COVID-19 were not vaccinated.
As Paul Heath, study leader and professor of pediatric infectious diseases, put it, “Vaccination coverage of pregnant women is disappointing now: less than a third are vaccinated.”
According to PHE, nearly 52,000 pregnant women in England have been vaccinated and no safety concerns have been reported. The situation is similar with 130,000 vaccinated pregnant women in the United States.