The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Special Programme in Human Reproduction (HRP) have a new plan to enhance the health and well-being of pregnant women and their babies in the wake of infectious disease outbreaks.
In the last few decades, the world has continuously grappled with epidemics of respiratory diseases such as COVID-19 and influenza; mosquito-borne viral diseases including Zika and Oropouche; and haemorrhagic fevers including Ebola and Marburg virus disease and mpox. These epidemics have significantly impacted women and their babies. However, it is important to know more about how disease outbreaks affect these populations in order to create informed policies, as well as clinical guidance for effective prevention and treatment.
The newly launched Roadmap for research on maternal and perinatal health in the context of epidemic threats provides a comprehensive strategy to address the unique challenges pregnant women and babies face during epidemics. The Roadmap seeks to fill gaps in what we know by fostering thorough research, the sharing of findings and by delivering actionable solutions to improve outcomes for women and their babies during health emergencies.
The Roadmap is grounded in a vision of a world where every pregnant woman and baby, no matter where they live or their economic situation, receives the highest standard of care during and after pregnancy – even in the most challenging of times.
Four key areas for action
The Roadmap calls on a wide range of stakeholders – including researchers, policymakers, health workers, international organizations and community advocates – to join forces in four main strategic areas:
- improve coordination and collaboration: streamlining global research efforts to ensure effective use of resources, enhance surveillance, and share knowledge;
- advocate for change: raising awareness, securing funding and partnerships to prioritize the health and well-being of pregnant women and their babies during epidemics;
- build research and surveillance capacity: enhancing skills, tools and infrastructure to better study how epidemics impact pregnant women and their babies, and generate high-quality evidence - including through standardized outcome measurement; and
- optimize timely use of evidence: by disseminating and encouraging wide accessibility and use of scientific knowledge by policymakers, health workers, researchers and women themselves.
The development of this Roadmap followed a rigorous, systematic process, including comprehensive analyses of existing maternal and perinatal health research, and several consultative meetings with a wide range of stakeholders.
WHO and HRP work to generate the evidence needed to better understand the effects of epidemics on women's health, women's perceptions and needs, and to improve relevant health system responses. Guided by this Roadmap, and in strong collaboration with all stakeholders, they will advance research, offer technical support to countries and develop guidance so that sexual and reproductive health services can be prioritized when emergencies occur.
