Mothers in Nigeria were between 2-4 times more likely to have fully immunized children if they attended 1-3 antenatal care (ANC) visits, between 2.5-8 times more likely if they attended 4-7 ANC visits, and between nearly 3-14 times more likely if they attended at least 8 ANC visits compared to those who had no ANC.
Similar findings have been seen in many LMICs, including Senegal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Zimbabwe, and Southwest Ethiopia.
The use of antenatal care (ANC) services among pregnant adolescents in low- and middle-income countries, including tetanus toxoid vaccination, was lowest among women who lived in rural areas, had completed less education, and who were of poorer wealth quintiles.
Studies from multiple Western countries have found that pregnant women infected with influenza during the 2009 A/H1N1 pandemic were at higher risk of miscarriages, stillbirths, low birthweight and premature deliveries. The risk of fetal death was between 2 and 5.5 times higher in pregnant women with influenza than in pregnant women without influenza. In the UK, the rate of stillbirths was 4.5 times higher and the likelihood of preterm delivery was 4 times greater in influenza-infected pregnant women than non-infected women.
Although this article indicated that influenza vaccination is safely used for the mother and the fetus, conflicting data exists on the effect of vaccination in improving preterm birth rates.
A systematic review of 8 African countries that had wild polio virus transmission and significant polio eradication activities found evidence that the huge investments made in polio have strengthened capacity in almost all aspects of the overall immunization systems, especially in the areas of microplanning, service delivery, capacity-building (especially supportive supervision and on-the-job training), and program management. This led to substantial increases in coverage of other routine vaccinations – BCG, DPT, measles – in all 8 countries over a 25-year period (1989-2014), including a more than a 3-fold increase in DPT3 coverage in 2 countries and a more than a 2-fold increase in 3 other countries.
During and after the Ebola epidemic in a hard-hit region of Guinea, the increasing trend of child vaccination coverage was reversed resulting in a significant decrease in coverage for most vaccines. Despite an uptick immediately following the end of the outbreak, the downward trend continued or plateaued for all vaccines.
Within two years of the introduction of PCV10 in Mozambique, the percent of vaccinated children under five years of age with nasopharyngeal carriage of vaccine strains, declined equally in HIV-infected as in HIV-uninfected children. The vaccine-type carriage rates among both HIV-infected and uninfected vaccinated children after the vaccine was introduced were similar.
Pneumococcal nasopharyngeal carriage can be a precursor of invasive pneumococcal disease.
Two years after the introduction of 10-strain pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-10) in Mozambique, the percent of unvaccinated children under five years of age who carried pneumococcal strains in the vaccine declined 30% among HIV-infected children, while no significant decline in unvaccinated HIV-negative children was seen.
A 2019 analysis of survey data from India, Ethiopia and Vietnam found that children vaccinated against measles scored better on cognitive tests of language development, math and reading than children who did not receive measles vaccines.
A 2019 analysis of survey data from school aged children in Ethiopia, India and Vietnam shows that children vaccinated against measles achieved 0.2 – 0.3 years of additional schooling compared to children who did not receive the measles vaccine.
A study of sickle cell disease patients in Ghana found that pneumoccocus bacteria found in their noses and throats had high rates of drug resistance with 37% of positive samples resistant to penicillin and 34% resistant to multiple drugs (typically penicillin + tetracycline + cotrimoxazole).
