Beate Sander is one of the Principal Investigators receiving funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for a research project to determine the optimal strategy for preventing GBS disease in Ontario infants.
AIM AND STUDY OBJECTIVES
The overarching aim of our research project is to determine the optimal strategy for preventing GBS disease in Ontario infants. The specific study objectives are:
1) To determine the incidence of infant GBS disease and to evaluate the uptake and effectiveness of maternal GBS screening and intrapartum antimicrobial prophylaxis in preventing early-onset disease.
2) To determine the attributable healthcare resource use and costs of infant GBS disease.
3) To compare GBS mitigation strategies (screening + intrapartum antimicrobial prophylaxis, potential vaccine, combination strategies) in terms of health outcomes, costs and cost-effectiveness.
LAY SUMMARY
Group B Streptococcus (GBS) disease is a life-threatening bacterial infection that is the leading cause of blood and brain infections in newborns. Despite advances in treatment, many infants with GBS disease die from the infection. Of the babies who survive, up to half suffer long-term effects, including deafness, mild to severe delays in mental function, or paralysis of all four limbs. The highest risk of GBS disease occurs in the first week of life when the infection is acquired from the baby’s mother during birth. In order to prevent these early cases, women are screened when they are 35-37 weeks pregnant to see if GBS bacteria are present. Antibiotics are given to all women who are found to have the bacteria, plus women who go into labour prematurely. This reduces cases in the first week of life, but misses some cases and does not prevent cases in older babies. Treating the mother with antibiotics is risky if she has allergies, and might harm the baby by killing beneficial bacteria. The solution may be a vaccine that would be given to women during pregnancy to prevent GBS in the baby. Although vaccines are quite advanced in development, we need to know more about the impact of GBS on babies and the effectiveness of the current screen-andtreat strategy to understand whether a vaccine will be better at preventing cases and reducing healthcare costs. Our study aims to fill the evidence gap by linking information about all pregnant women who give birth in Ontario with health care information about their baby to understand how many babies get sick with GBS disease. Our results will show how well our current strategy is working, how much it costs and how this compares with the potential benefits and costs of a vaccine. In this way we can find out the best way to protect Canadian children from this devastating infection.
CIHR Page: Grant Details
Posted on Jan 24, 2019