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Influenza causes considerable morbidity and mortality among pregnant women and young infants, including neonates, worldwide. In the U.S., no vaccines are currently licensed for use in infants aged <6 months. Might vaccination of pregnant women protect their infants against influenza?
The Mother’s Gift project is an ongoing prospective, controlled, blinded trial of maternal immunization, conducted in Bangladesh and supported with government, industry, and private funds. As part of this study, 340 women in the third trimester of pregnancy were randomized to receive either an inactivated influenza vaccine or a pneumococcal (control) vaccine. The primary outcome in infants was the first episode of laboratory-confirmed influenza before age 24 wee…