New access point to real-time evidence on vaccines for emerging diseases in pregnant women and children

Prestigious scientific institutions have joined forces to launch a free and personalized access portal that constitutes an access point to updated and synthesized evidence almost in real time on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines for emerging infectious diseases during pregnancy and childhood. Its objective is to support timely health decision-making.

Un free access website https://www.safeinpregnancy.org/ which collects and synthesizes almost in real time evidence on the efficacy, effectiveness, safety and immunogenicity in pregnancy and childhood of Vaccines against COVID-19, chikungunya, Lassa fever and mpox (monkeypox)) promises facilitate decision making health measures and the updating of recommendations and guidelines and can serve to accelerate the response to a possible new pandemic.

From the initiative, named “Safe in Pregnancy & Safe in Children”, among others, the Institute of Clinical and Health Effectiveness (IECS) of Argentina, the universities of Tulane y Washington, in the United States, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom, as well as the Platform for Vaccine Safety in Emergency (SPEAC).

The participating entities make up the Scientific Committee that independently reviews all stages of each project from its protocol to publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals. On the other hand, an “Advisory Committee” made up of representatives from the academic area, the pharmaceutical industry and regulatory bodies, among others, ensures the quality of the product.

The tool produces the calls living systematic reviews, a transparent and rigorous methodology in which estimates and summary of findings are continuously updated as new relevant studies are published.

“When you have to take quick decisions In health crises, having a reliable tool that updates and presents large volumes of evidence in a user-friendly way becomes an invaluable resource," said two project leaders, Dr. Mabel Berrueta, one of the directors of the IECS and the Dr. Agustín Ciapponi, director of the Cochrane IECS Centre.

This digital platform allows customize the variables of interest, for example, safety in children in a certain age range for a certain type of vaccine or its effectiveness when immunization is performed in the second or third trimester of pregnancy in pregnant women. Based on the evidence, The results of systematic reviews with meta-analysis are provided instantly.

“Safe in Pregnancy & Safe in Children” has different funders that support the different spaces of the platform. The live visualizer project was developed in 2021 for COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy and that stage was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Living systematic reviews for chikungunya, Lassa fever and monkeypox vaccines are supported by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

Chikungunya, Lassa fever and mpox (monkeypox) are three potentially serious viral diseases: the first is transmitted by the same mosquitoes that carry dengue and has been present in the Americas since 2013; the second affects West Africa and is transmitted through contact with food or household utensils contaminated with rodent urine or feces; and the third can be transmitted from person to person through skin-to-skin physical contact and is currently causing an outbreak in Africa that has been declared a “public health emergency of international concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO) and has caused more than 1.000 deaths. In this latest outbreak, transmission to children has been particularly high.

On the other hand, this methodology of data analysis and visualization could spread to other emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases including the so-called Disease X, a conceptual construction of a future global epidemic for which anticipation and preparation are required, keeping teams active.