We are delighted that Pfizer has been awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a Phase 1/2 clinical trial to evaluate a group B streptococcus vaccine. The vaccine is designed to protect newborn babies via maternal immunisation.
The need for a vaccine that could protect pregnant women and their newborn babies against GBS infection is urgent, particularly in developing countries and those where screening and use of antibiotics in labour is not routine. A vaccine against group B Strep in newborn babies would enable the mother to pass protective antibodies to her unborn child late in pregnancy, to prevent not only GBS infections developing in newborns, but also the less common GBS infections developing later in pregnancy or after the first week of life.
A vaccine will, one day, prevent so many more group B Strep infections in babies than the current UK strategy, and of a screening strategy. Read more at http://ow.ly/iy1I305kQwW
