COVID-19 in Pregnant Individuals and Children: Vaccine Access and Advocacy

Announcer:
Welcome toClinician’s Roundtable on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Flor Muñoz, who’s an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases, and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas. She’ll be discussing COVID-19 in maternal and pediatric populations and how we can improve representation and vaccine uptake. Here’s Dr. Muñoz now.

Dr. Munoz:
To improve representation for pregnant women and children to be able to receive these vaccines and improve coverage, I think that the most important aspect is to be able to continue to include them in the assessment of the impact of disease, so that data regarding the burden of COVID-19 in the specific groups that we're discussing—pregnant women, postpartum women, infants in the first year of life but even young children—where you can see that, even though we've passed the peak of the pandemic—we're in a post-pandemic period with these viruses now, endemic, and we continue to see episodes of activity and different outbreaks at different times of the year—that the data that is collected that shows that these groups continue to have consequences from infection is very relevant. So prioritizing the assessment of burden of disease in pregnancy, newborns, and young infants is really going to help support any implementation or decision-making regarding prevention of the disease.

On the side of the patient and the provider, I think that a recommendation from professional organizations for vaccination is always important for providers to then be able to talk to the families and discuss the utilization of the vaccine. So we've talked about how provider recommendation is critical to increase vaccine uptake in specific populations at risk, especially when there's other concerns regarding safety and in pregnancy. It's about not just a mother, but also her fetus or her infant.

And lastly, I would say the other strategy that is very helpful is to ensure that there is ongoing monitoring of safety and also of the impact of the vaccination, because it continues to be a question and having that reassurance that there are safety surveillance systems in place that are going to be providing updated information regarding the vaccine and when it's utilized in the real world is very important. Obviously, sharing the data, sharing this information, sharing the recommendations, sharing the burden of disease, and sharing the safety data in a way that is clear to providers and to the public in general that is transparent, because it's going to be objective, and showing the information as it comes probably from different systems is also very important because it allows a dialogue. It allows the opportunity to have a discussion with these populations at risk.

Announcer:
That was Dr. Flor Muñoz talking about the COVID-19 vaccine advocacy for maternal and pediatric populations. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Clinician’s Roundtable on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!