Vaccines for Perinatal and Congenital Infections—How Close Are We?

Abstract

Congenital and perinatal infections are transmitted from mother to infant during pregnancy across the placenta or during delivery. These infections not only cause pregnancy complications and still birth, but also result in an array of pediatric morbidities caused by physical deformities, neurodevelopmental delays, and impaired vision, mobility and hearing. Due to the burden of these conditions, congenital and perinatal infections may result in lifelong disability and profoundly impact an individual's ability to live to their fullest capacity. While there are vaccines to prevent congenital and perinatal rubella, varicella, and hepatitis B infections, many more are currently in development at various stages of progress. The spectrum of our efforts to understand and address these infections includes observational studies of natural history of disease, epidemiological evaluation of risk factors, immunogen design, preclinical research of protective immunity in animal models, and evaluation of promising candidates in vaccine trials. In this review we summarize this progress in vaccine development research for Cytomegalovirus, Group B Streptococcus, Herpes simplex virus, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Toxoplasma, Syphilis, and Zika virus congenital and perinatal infections. We then synthesize this evidence to examine how close we are to developing a vaccine for these infections, and highlight areas where research is still needed.

Maternal vaccination: a review of current evidence and recommendations

“…Congenital CMV is the most common cause of Expert Review ajog.org congenital deafness globally, and the development of a vaccine is a priority, which was recognized by the US National Academy of Medicine in 2000. 144 Congenital infection can occur in women who have never had CMV before and are infected during pregnancy (primary infection); it can also occur in women who were infected with CMV before pregnancy and either have reactivation of infection or are infected with a different strain in pregnancy (secondary infection), though the risk of congenital infection in infants is the greatest in those with primary infection. 145 These different modes of infection have made vaccine development complex, as has our limited understanding of the exact mechanisms by which maternal immunity protects the fetus.…”

Sentinel Seals, Safe Cats, and Better Treatments

“…The development of a vaccine for kittens would not be easy because of the many strains of T. gondii and because the parasite is much more complex than a virus. However the recent success of vaccine development against the SARS-CoV-2 virus demonstrated what can be done when such a task is prioritized [39][40][41].…”

In Silico Designed Multi-Epitope Immunogen “Tpme-VAC/LGCM-2022” May Induce Both Cellular and Humoral Immunity against Treponema pallidum Infection

“…While syphilis can still be treated with penicillin with no occurrence of penicillin-resistant strains, there have been cases of macrolide-resistant strains, such as Azithromycin [ 6 ]. The disease’s prevalence in spite of the pathogen’s sensitivity to penicillin indicates the pathogen is unlikely to be controlled through screening and treatment alone [ 7 ]. Despite concerted efforts from the WHO to contain congenital syphilis and joint efforts to halt the spread of sexually transmitted syphilis, it remains a challenging disease to tackle as a result of various limiting factors [ 8 ].…”

“…Proof-of-principle for successful syphilis vaccination in the rabbit model was established in 1973, indicating development of a T. pallidum vaccine could be viable, but the immunization procedure demonstrated then was untenable for human application [ 9 ]. Attempts to develop a syphilis vaccine have since focused on the targeting of the bacterium’s outer membrane proteins (OMPs), of which there are few, and the few that are known are difficult to isolate [ 7 , 9 ]. Certain OMPs had limited potential in eliciting a protective response, suggesting that no single protein will confer full protective immunity against T. pallidum [ 10 ].…”