ATLANTA — Swine flu has hit pregnant women unusually hard, so they are likely to be among the first people to get a new swine-flu shot this fall.
Pregnant women account for 6 percent of U.S. swine-flu deaths since the pandemic began in April, even though they make up just 1 percent of the U.S. population.
Today, a federal vaccine advisory panel is meeting to look at who should be first to get shots when there aren’t enough for everyone. At the top of the list are health care workers, who would be crucial to society during a bad pandemic.
But pregnant women may be near the top of the list because they have suffered and died from swine flu at disproportionately high rates.
But so far, the World Health Organization has not recommended that pregnant women get priority vaccinations.
For more than a decade, the committee has recommended that pregnant women get vaccinated for seasonal flu, which is considered a serious threat even to pregnant women who are young and healthy.
Pregnant women are unusually vulnerable — especially in the third trimester — because of changes in the lungs and immune system that make it harder for them to shake off respiratory infections, said Dr. Kevin Ault, an obstetrician at Emory University in Atlanta.
