Ebola vaccine will be provided to women who are pregnant, marking reversal in policy
Women who are pregnant and lactating, as well as children under the age of 1, will be offered access to an experimental Ebola vaccine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, officials said Wednesday, marking the reversal of a controversial policy that had drawn fire from public health experts.
The decision was made by a committee advising the Congolese Ministry of Health, but received the support of the World Health Organization. It followed an outcry over the exclusion of pregnant women from the vaccination program, with some experts calling the initial policy “indefensible.”
Proponents of the earlier policy argued that the vaccine, which goes by the provisional name V920, might harm the fetus or trigger a miscarriage. They noted that there were no data to show the vaccine was safe to use in this very vulnerable population.
