Vaccination against Covid-19 in Pregnant and Lactating Women in Belgium (PREGCOVAC.BE).

Women often want or need to be vaccinated during pregnancy or lactation. This may be with perspectives of a trip, booster vaccination or prevailing epidemics. Furthermore, vaccination during pregnancy is regarded as a valid method to provide immunological protection to the newborn. The systematic exclusion of pregnant and breastfeeding women from clinical vaccine studies means however that it often takes a long time before sufficient data are available on the effectiveness and safety of vaccination during these periods. This lack of data forces them to make uninformed risk-benefit decisions about their own health and the one of their newborn. In this prospective, multicohort, observational study, we aim to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of COVID19-vaccination during pregnancy and lactation. Participants can freely choose to be vaccinated when they are invited through the governmental invitation scheme. Both mRNA vaccines and adenovector vaccines are accepted. To evaluate the immune response after vaccination against COVID-19, samples (blood, breastmilk, nasopharyngeal swabs) are taken at different timepoints before and after COVID-19 vaccination.

Keywords:LACTATION, VACCINATION, PREGNANCY

Disciplines:Vaccinology

Project type:Collaboration project