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Hispanic teen mothers lack pertussis immunity.(Obstetrics)
SAN FRANCISCO -- Low levels of immunity to pertussis in adolescent Hispanic mothers and their newborns may help explain their overrepresentation in pertussis cases and in deaths from the disease, C. Mary Healy, M.D., said in a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
A study of pertussis toxin-specific IgG concentrations found low concentrations in umbilical cord blood from 220 consecutive term singletons born to Hispanic women, with the lowest geometric mean concentrations in infants born to adolescent mothers. The low antibody levels likely reflect waning of vaccine-induced or natural immunity, she said.
Dr. Healy of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and her associates also compared pertussis toxin-specific IgG concentrations in blood samples from 55 mothers and their infants and found a ratio indicating efficient transfer of antibodies across the placenta. That suggests that one reason infants may be so susceptible to acquiring life-threatening pertussis in the first 4 months of life is because their mothers supply them with few antibodies.
"If you have high levels in the mothers, for example through vaccination, then the likelihood is that the antibodies will transmit very efficiently to infants and, hopefully, protect them at that most vulnerable period in the first few months of life before they begin their primary series of immunizations," she said in an interview at the meeting.
Currently there are no recommendations to vaccinate pregnant women against pertussis. Discussions are underway about whether to give pregnant women one of two relatively new acellular pertussis vaccines licensed for use in adolescents, Dr. Healy said.
"Hispanic women, especially adolescents, should be immunized with newly licensed acellular pertussis vaccine to prevent pertussis in themselves and life-threatening disease in their infants," she concluded ...
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Source: HighBeam Research, Hispanic teen mothers lack pertussis immunity.(Obstetrics)