Prioritizing Pregnant Women for COVID-19 Vaccination

Even though evidence for safety and efficacy is emerging, most countries do not offer vaccination to pregnant women, despite they being at higher risk of complications from COVID-19. We did a web search on policies for COVID-19 vaccination of pregnant women in two sets of countries – those bearing a high burden of COVID-19 cases, and a second set with a high burden of maternal andunder five mortality globally. Of the top 20 COVID-19 affected countries, nine allow vaccination of pregnant women, of which two preferentially vaccinate pregnant women. In contrast, four of the 20 high under-five mortality countries allow vaccination of pregnant women, while none has included them in the preferential group. India and Indonesia with one fifth of world’s population fall in both the groups, but do not include pregnant women for COVID-19 vaccination.For COVID-19 not to further aggravate the already heavy burden of maternal and under five mortality, there is a strong case for inclusion of pregnant women as a high priority group for COVID-19 vaccination. We recommend including COVID-19 vaccination in the routine protocol for antenatal care in all countries, particularly India and Indonesia in view of their high dual burden.

Recommended citation: Sarwal, R. (2021). Prioritizing Pregnant Women for COVID-19 Vaccination. Center for Open Science. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/5yxh7
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