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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/dec/20/australia-bird-flu-pandemic-risks-pregnant-women-unborn-babies>
"Most pregnant women who contract bird flu will die, according to an Australian
review of infections that found most unborn babies with the virus also die.
Caused by influenza A viruses, a severe strain of bird flu known as highly
pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) is spreading globally.
While this has caused large outbreaks in poultry and wild birds and spillover
infections in mammals, human infections are rare and usually limited to people
who work in close contact with sick birds and livestock. There is no evidence
of transmission between humans.
There have been increasing numbers of human infections associated with the
outbreak in some parts of the world including in China and the US. Most human
cases have been mild, with just one severe case in the US.
An infectious diseases researcher with the Murdoch Children’s Research
Institute in Melbourne, Dr Rachael Purcell, said while many people who became
infected with avian influenza were “completely fine, we wanted to look at what
is known about what happens to pregnant women”.
“A pregnant woman’s immune system doesn’t work in the same way as it does prior
to pregnancy,” Purcell said. “Unvaccinated pregnant women who get other viruses
such as Covid-19 or seasonal influenza often get more sick than non-pregnant
women, but we really didn’t know much about what happens to women with avian
influenza.”
Purcell and her colleagues examined more than 1,500 research papers to identify
any confirmed cases of bird flu in pregnant women. They found 30 such cases
across China, Vietnam, Cambodia and the US associated with different strains
and outbreaks.
Published in
Emerging Infectious Diseases, the review found that 90% of women
infected with bird flu during pregnancy died, and almost all of their babies
(87%) died with them. Of the babies who survived, most were born prematurely.
“What it highlights to us is that whilst the risk of avian influenza becoming
the next human pandemic is thought to be low, it’s really important to think
about vulnerable populations and how we might protect them and include them in
vaccination programs,” Purcell said.
“Despite being a high-risk population, pregnant women are often excluded from
vaccine trials, from priority access to therapeutics, and experience delayed
entry into public health vaccination programs.”
There are no specific vaccines for avian influenza in humans, though trial
vaccines have been developed for pandemic preparedness in some countries. But
these vaccines are not recommended for pregnant women because of a lack of
safety data.
“That’s one of the challenges we often have with vaccines, as it is considered
unsafe to test them in pregnant women,” Purcell said. “I think as we move
forward, what we need to do is think about how we get data on pregnant women."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
