Vaccine may cut infection risk of newborns

ATLANTA, Sep 20, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia in Atlanta are studying a vaccine designed to eliminate the infection risk of newborns from their mothers.

Scientists say common bacteria that live harmlessly in the gastrointestinal tract and vagina of 25 percent of women can become lethal if a newborn is exposed to them during birth.

"If we could give a vaccine to prevent women from harboring group B streptococcus in the vagina, then babies are not going to get it," said Dr. Daron Ferris, a family medicine physician at MCG and a principal investigator in the National Institutes of Health study.

MCG, as well as the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas Inc., are enrolling 600 healthy, non-pregnant women in the study.

Half the participants will receive the new vaccine developed at Harvard University and the rest will receive a standard tetanus toxoid vaccine.

Group B strep is the most common infectious cause of death in newborns, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Problems typically occur within the first week of life when the immune system is least able to fight off infection.