Academic Press Maternal Immunization

Immunization during pregnancy with currently recommended vaccines prevents infection in the mother, the unborn fetus, and the young infant, and there is an increasing focus from different stakeholders to use this approach for other infections of importance to protect these vulnerable groups. The aim of this Maternal Immunization book is to provide a contemporary overview of vaccines used in pregnancy (and the lactation period), with emphasis on aspects of importance for the target groups, namely, rationale for the use of vaccines in pregnancy, safety, immunogenicity (immunology), timing to vaccinate, repeat doses, protective effects in the mother, fetus, and infant, and public acceptance and implementation, of existing and of future vaccines. Review "This book provides a helpful review on vaccines, as well as the pathogens that they target, and will likely benefit providers who commonly administer immunizations and receive questions regarding their benefits and safety. Moreover, the writing is done such that providers who do not have a background in the research and development of vaccines will still find the material understandable. While this book does contain reviews of several vaccines currently in development, it omits work being done on COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Given the rapidly shifting developments regarding potential vaccines for this virus, its exclusion may benefit the book by allowing it to avoid reviewing information that becomes dated quickly and instead focus on the immunizations with scientifically proven benefits to both mothers and children." --Doody Review Provides a contemporary overview of vaccines in pregnancy, with an emphasis on aspects of importance for the target group About the Author Dr Elke Leuridan is an Associate Professor at the Vaccine & Infectious Diseases Institute, Centre for the Evaluation of Vaccination, University of Antwerp, Belgium. She completed her M.D. degree from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and obtained a PhD at the University of Antwerp, working on vaccine preventable diseases and maternal antibodies. As postdoctoral researcher, she supervises several projects on all aspects of pertussis vaccination during pregnancy in Belgium and abroad (Vietnam, Thailand). She is the promoter of several PhD students on the topic, is involved in the training of medical students and supervises yearly several master and advanced master theses. She is member of the Belgian National Health Council, working group vaccination, and participates in the decision-making process on current and future immunization programs in Belgium. Since 2015, she combines working in research with general practice. Dr Marta Nunes is a Reader, Associate Professor, at the Vaccine Preventable Diseases Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Marta developed her PhD work at the Department of Neurology & Neuroscience, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, USA and obtained her PhD from the University of Lisbon, Medical College, Portugal. After her post-doctoral training at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, where she developed different projects aimed at understanding the cell biology of Plasmodium falciparum and to identify molecular candidates for malaria vaccines for pregnant women, she moved to South Africa in 2009. To approach the problem of infant morbidity and mortality related to infections she is exploring the potential of intervening through vaccination of pregnant women to protect the women and their babies against infections. This also includes the evaluation of this intervention in reducing adverse birth outcomes. Dr Chrissie Jones is an Associate Professor in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust in the UK. During her PhD she carried out a mother-infant study looking at the effect of maternal HIV and tubercul