The WHO never rests because the battle against pathogens is never ending. An interesting article appeared in IFLSCIENCE on November 3rd 2021 with the title:
Vaccine Urgently Needed For Bacteria Killing
150,000 Babies Annually, WHO Reports
In this post, I'll dissect the article and add some comments. It begins:
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for the development of a vaccine against Group B streptococcus (GBS), a common bacteria implicated in the deaths of around 150,000 babies each year.
This translates to:
PROBLEM: GBS is killing 150,000 babies per year
REACTION: How can we prevent these deaths?
SOLUTION: A vaccine must be developed
We'll return to this problem, reaction, solution in a moment. The article goes on to highlight the dangerous nature of this pathogen.
In their report, issued November 2, the WHO revealed the global burden of GBS is much higher than previously thought. As well as the aforementioned alarming number of newborn deaths, the bacterium is also linked to over half a million preterm births and at least 46,000 stillbirths a year – though the real numbers are likely even higher, as there are significant data gaps around the total burden of death and disease.
“This new research shows that Group B strep is a major and under-appreciated threat to newborn survival and wellbeing, bringing devastating impacts for so many families globally. WHO joins partners in calling for urgent development of a maternal GBS vaccine, which would have profound benefits in countries worldwide,” Dr Phillipp Lambach, Medical Officer from WHO’s Immunisation, Vaccines and Biologicals department, and report author, said in a statement.
Now comes the kicker. We learn the GBS is "harmless" and forms part of the microbiome of about 15% of mothers giving birth.
GBS is harmless for most who carry it. An average of 15 percent of pregnant people – nearly 20 million per year – carry the bacterium in their vagina. While this is usually asymptomatic, GBS can pass to babies during pregnancy, childbirth, or in the early weeks of life, which can be extremely serious. The bacterium is linked to neonatal and newborn meningitis and sepsis, both of which can be fatal, and can result in neuro-developmental impairment and congenital defects.
However, these mothers can pass the bacteria on to their babies before, during and after birth. One might expect that the mother's immunity to the deleterious effects of GBS would be passed on to her child. Given half a chance this might happen but medical intervention will ensure that this probably does not happen. The article explains that:
Currently, antibiotic therapy is used to treat cases in infants and parents. Antibiotics are also used as a precaution to prevent GBS and are administered during labor to parents in whom the bacterium has been detected. However, the risk still remains high.
“Prevention of early onset GBS is possible in countries where it is policy,” Professor Joy Lawn, Director of the Maternal Adolescent Reproductive & Child Health (MARCH) Centre at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and contributor to the report told IFLScience. “However, even with high use of GBS test and treat in pregnancy, GBS stillbirths and GBS-associated preterm birth will not be likely to be prevented by antibiotics.”
So we learn that a test has been devised to detect this "harmless" pathogen that can easily turn deadly and a positive test means that a course of antibiotics is administered to the expectant mother, ensuring that her microbiome is devastated before giving birth.
Where does GBS take its highest toll? We learn that:
This is the case across the world, but particularly in low- and middle-income countries, where the burden of GBS was the greatest. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, rates of maternal GBS are the highest in the world – accounting for almost half of the global burden. Eastern and South-Eastern Asia are also disproportionally affected.
In other words, GBS strikes in those countries where sanitation and nutrition is poorest. Here we might reframe our previous problem, reaction, solution:
PROBLEM: GBS is killing 150,000 babies per year in low and middle income countries
REACTION: How can we prevent these deaths?
SOLUTION: Let's improve sanitation, nutrition and the health infrastructure of these countries.
Of course, this is never a solution in the eyes of the WHO. The current solution of administering antibiotics is not a big money spinner and so the inevitable is proposed:
A preventative maternal vaccine, therefore, is urgently needed, the WHO says. Several candidates are in the pipeline, but none are available yet, despite almost 40 years of work.
“The idea for a maternal GBS vaccine was suggested about 4 decades ago, but is only in the last decade that more progress has been made,” Prof. Lawn told IFLScience.
Boosting natural immunity is never an option. Where potential pathogens are involved, a vaccine must be sought and it seems that one or more of them are nearly here.
“One hexavalent [six-in-one] vaccine is entering phase 3 trials in humans... Then following is a protein based one.” A few, including an mRNA vaccine, are in pre-clinical trials, she added.
The miracle that is modern medicine may soon produce an mRNA vaccine to combat GBS. Given the devastating effects of this bacterium, the vaccine may well receive emergency approval before the trials are even concluded. It may well be administered to all expectant mothers, just in case. It may well be mandated for any woman entering hospital to give birth. We learn that the benefits are financial as well:
Promising as this is, the report highlights the urgency of the situation and calls for vaccine developers and funders to accelerate the development of a safe and effective GBS vaccine. An estimated 50,000 GBS-related deaths, as well as over 170,000 preterm births, could be prevented every year if said vaccine reached 70 percent of pregnant people. The benefits would not only be health-focused but also financial – the report claims that between $1 billion and $17 billion could be saved worldwide from just a year of maternal GBS vaccination.
No mention of the profits to Big Pharma of course. These vaccines are being developed for the benefit of humanity, to save the babies. Anyone who questions their administration is clearly a monster. The article concludes:
“A new maternal vaccine against GBS would be a game-changer in the reduction of newborn and maternal deaths for the most affected countries,” Dr Martina Lukong Baye, Coordinator of the National Multisector Programme to Combat Maternal, Newborn & Child Mortality at the Ministry of Public Health in Cameroon, said. “We plead to all stakeholders to treat this as a matter of moral priority.”
Wow, so it's a moral priority to develop a vaccine that can be administered to pregnant women. It's not hard to understand the game being played here and yet it will be almost impossible to stop it. Big Pharma will aggressively promote it, Big Medicine will enthusiastically embrace it, and Big Media will sing its praises. Big Government may even mandate it.
This is just another example of the medical madness that has overtaken global health. Confusingly, GBS is also an acronym not only for Group B streptococcus but also for Guillain-Barré syndrome, a known side-effect of the Covid mRNA vaccines. In any case, once again we have a manufactured crisis with a pre-planned solution.
