Scientific Publications by FDA Staff

J Infect Dis 2014 Aug 15;210(4):604-10

Maternal and Neonatal Vaccination Protects Newborn Baboons From Pertussis Infection.

Warfel JM, Papin JF, Wolf RF, Zimmerman LI, Merkel TJ

Background. The US is experiencing a pertussis resurgence resulting in a 60-year high of 48,000 cases in 2012. The majority of hospitalizations and deaths occur in infants too young to be vaccinated. Neonatal and maternal vaccination have been proposed to protect newborns until the current first vaccination at two months of age. These interventions result in elevated anti-pertussis titers but there have been no studies demonstrating these measures confer protection. Methods. Baboons were vaccinated with acellular pertussis (aP) vaccine at two days of age or at two and 28 days of age. To model maternal vaccination, adult female baboons, primed with aP vaccine, were boosted in the third trimester of pregnancy. Neonatally-vaccinated infants, infants born to vaccinated mothers and naïve infants from unvaccinated mothers were infected with B. pertussis at five weeks of age. Results. Naïve infant baboons developed severe disease when challenged with B. pertussis at five weeks of age. Baboons receiving aP vaccine and infants born to mothers vaccinated at the beginning of their third trimester were protected. Conclusions. Our results demonstrate that neonatal vaccination and maternal vaccination confer protection in the baboon model and support further study of these strategies for protection of newborns from pertussis infection.