Advances towards licensure of a maternal vaccine for the prevention of invasive group B streptococcus disease in infants: a discussion of different approaches

Autor: Judith Absalon, Raphael Simon, David Radley, Peter C. Giardina, Kenneth Koury, Kathrin U. Jansen, Annaliesa S. Anderson
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, Vol 18, Iss 1 (2022)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2164-5515
2164-554X
21645515
DOI: 10.1080/21645515.2022.2037350
Popis: Group B streptococcus (Streptococcus agalactiae, GBS) is an important cause of life-threatening disease in newborns. Pregnant women colonized with GBS can transmit the bacteria to the developing fetus, as well as to their neonates during or after delivery where infection can lead to sepsis, meningitis, pneumonia, or/and death. While intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP) is the standard of care for prevention of invasive GBS disease in some countries, even in such settings a substantial residual burden of disease remains. A GBS vaccine administered during pregnancy could potentially address this important unmet medical need and provide an adjunct or alternative to IAP for the prevention of invasive GBS disease in neonates. A hurdle for vaccine development has been relatively low disease rates making efficacy studies difficult. Given the well-accepted inverse relationship between anti-GBS capsular polysaccharide antibody titers at birth and risk of disease, licensure using serological criteria as a surrogate biomarker represents a promising approach to accelerate the availability of a GBS vaccine.
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