Maternal immune response and placental antibody transfer after COVID-19 vaccination across trimester and platforms

The availability of three COVID-19 vaccines in the United States provides an unprecedented opportunity to examine how vaccine platforms and timing of vaccination in pregnancy impact maternal and neonatal immunity. Here, we characterized the antibody profile after Ad26.COV2.S, mRNA-1273 or BNT162b2 vaccination in 158 pregnant individuals, and evaluated transplacental antibody transfer by profiling maternal and umbilical cord blood in 175 maternal-neonatal dyads. These analyses revealed lower vaccine-induced functions and Fc-receptor binding after Ad26.COV2.S compared to mRNA vaccination, and subtle advantages in titer and function with mRNA-1273 versus BN162b2. mRNA vaccinees had higher titers and functions against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. First and third trimester vaccination resulted in enhanced maternal immune responses relative to second trimester. Higher cord:maternal transfer ratios following first and second trimester vaccination reflect placental compensation for waning maternal titers. These results support vaccination early in pregnancy to maximize maternal protection throughout gestation, without compromising neonatal antibody protection.

COVID-19 vaccine response in pregnant and lactating women: a cohort study

BackgroundPregnant and lactating women were excluded from initial COVID-19 vaccine trials; thus, data to guide vaccine decision-making are lacking. We sought to evaluate the immunogenicity and reactogenicity of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination in pregnant and lactating women. Methods131 reproductive-age vaccine recipients (84 pregnant, 31 lactating, and 16 non-pregnant) were enrolled in a prospective cohort study at two academic medical centers. Titers of SARS-CoV-2 Spike and RBD IgG, IgA and IgM were quantified in participant sera (N=131), umbilical cord sera (N=10), and breastmilk (N=31) at baseline, 2nd vaccine dose, 2-6 weeks post 2nd vaccine, and delivery by Luminex, and confirmed by ELISA. Titers were compared to pregnant women 4-12 weeks from native infection (N=37). Post-vaccination symptoms were assessed. Kruskal-Wallis tests and a mixed effects model, with correction for multiple comparisons, were used to assess differences between groups. ResultsVaccine-induced immune responses were equivalent in pregnant and lactating vs non-pregnant women. All titers were higher than those induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy. Vaccine-generated antibodies were present in all umbilical cord blood and breastmilk samples. SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG, but not IgA, increased in maternal blood and breastmilk with vaccine boost. No differences were noted in reactogenicity across the groups. ConclusionsCOVID-19 mRNA vaccines generated robust humoral immunity in pregnant and lactating women, with immunogenicity and reactogenicity similar to that observed in non-pregnant women. Vaccine-induced immune responses were significantly greater than the response to natural infection. Immune transfer to neonates occurred via placental and breastmilk.

Health Communication Through News Media During the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Outbreak in China: A Digital Topic Modeling Approach

BackgroundIn December 2019, some COVID-19 cases were first reported and soon the disease broke out. As this dreadful disease spreads rapidly, the mass media has been active in community education on COVID-19 by delivering health information about this novel coronavirus. MethodsWe adopted the Huike database to extract news articles about coronavirus from major press media, between January 1st, 2020, to February 20th, 2020. The data were sorted and analyzed by Python software and Python package Jieba. We sought a suitable topic number using the coherence number. We operated Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling with the suitable topic number and generated corresponding keywords and topic names. We divided these topics into different themes by plotting them into two-dimensional plane via multidimensional scaling. FindingsAfter removing duplicates, 7791 relevant news reports were identified. We listed the number of articles published per day. According to the coherence value, we chose 20 as our number of topics and obtained their names and keywords. These topics were categorized into nine primary themes based on the topic visualization figure. The top three popular themes were prevention and control procedures, medical treatment and research, global/local social/economic influences, accounting for 32{middle dot}6%, 16{middle dot}6%, 11{middle dot}8% of the collected reports respectively. InterpretationThe Chinese mass media news reports lag behind the COVID-19 outbreak development. The major themes accounted for around half the content and tended to focus on the larger society than on individuals. The COVID-19 crisis has become a global issue, and society has also become concerned about donation and support as well as mental health. We recommend that future work should address the mass medias actual impact on readers during the COVID-19 crisis through sentiment analysis of news data. FundingNational Social Science Foundation of China (18CXW021) Evidence before this studyThe novel coronavirus related news reports have engaged public attention in China during the COVID-19 crisis. Topic modeling of these news articles can produce useful information about the significance of mass media for early health communication. We searched the Huike database, the most professional Chinese media content database, using the search term "coronavirus" for related news articles published from January 1st, 2020, to February 20th, 2020. We found that these articles can be classified into different themes according to their emphasis, however, we found no other studies apply topic modeling method to study them. Added value of this studyTo our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the patterns of health communications through media and the role the media have played and are still playing in the light of the current COVID-19 crisis in China with topic modeling method. We compared the number of articles each day with the outbreak development and identified theres a delay in reporting COVID-19 outbreak progression for Chinese mass media. We identify nine main themes for 7791 collected news reports and detail their emphasis respectively. Implications of all the available evidenceOur results show that the mass media news reports play a significant role in health communication during the COVID-19 crisis, government can strengthen the report dynamics and enlarge the news coverage next time another disease strikes. Sentiment analysis of news data are needed to assess the actual effect of the news reports.