Vaccination of Pregnant Women

Pregnant women are currently enrolled in our unselected, prospective, birth cohort study "The ABC Cohort", recruiting 800 women between Q1-2009 and Q4-2010. The women are enrolled during the 2nd trimester, and their infants will undergo a close clinical follow-up for the first 3 years of life.

The timing of this enrollment and the imminent pandemic allows for an "experiment of nature" whereby the first half of the mothers completes pregnancy before the H1N1v pandemic; the other half will be pregnant while H1N1v is prevalent in the community and will require H1N1v vaccination.

Therefore, COPSAC has initiated a randomized, controlled, trial to compare and evaluate the dose-related immune protection conferred by vaccine and adjuvant (Novartis vaccine, Focteria) in pregnant and non-pregnant women.

In addition, the passive immunity conferred to the newborn from these vaccine regimes is assessed.

We have vaccinated 235 women as of January 2010 aiming at 600 before Q4-2010.