Pregnant women are at higher risk of becoming seriously ill with coronavirus compared to non-pregnant women, confirmed by experts from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) during a press conference.
The latest data also show that vaccination reduces the risk of hospitalisation or death during pregnancy without causing complications in pregnancy and without harming the unborn child.
In a statement following the announcements, EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakidou said that "the recommendations of the EMA are clear" and that vaccines "protect both the child and the infant without causing complications in pregnancy".
"I urge pregnant women across the EU to seek vaccination as soon as possible to reduce the risk of facing the most serious effects of the virus," she added."
Among other things, the EMA also announced that antiviral drugs such as Paxlovid and remdesivir are also effective against Omicron and can reduce the effects of the disease resulting from this variant of the coronavirus.
Also, according to the EMA, the latest studies show that vaccines against COVID-19 effectively protect against severe disease and hospitalization from the Omicron variant, especially in people who have received the booster dose.
In particular, data from South Africa show that people who have received two doses were protected by up to 70% against Omicron, while data from the UK showed that although protection decreases a few months after completion of vaccination, it increases to 90% after the booster dose.
However the EMA stresses that Omicron has a high transmissibility which has resulted in an increase in cases, and therefore it is important to understand the burden it can place on health systems and not just consider it a minor disease.
It is also reported that the vaccine's efficacy against symptom onset is lower with regard to Omicron.
The EMA also announced that it has received an application for consideration of extending the booster dose for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to adolescents 16 to 17 years of age, and that a similar application is expected soon with regard to children 12 to 15 years of age.
As the EMA reminds us, in some children, coronavirus can lead to serious illness, hospitalisation and even death, and vaccines have been shown to prevent most cases of COVID-19 and are highly effective in preventing hospitalisation.
Source: CNA
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