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Zika virus (ZIKV) infection during pregnancy poses significant threats to maternal and fetal health, leading to intrauterine fetal demise and severe developmental malformations that constitute congenital Zika syndrome (CZS). As such, the development of a safe and effective ZIKV vaccine is a critical public health priority. However, the safety and efficacy of such a vaccine during pregnancy remain uncertain. Historically, the conduct of clinical trials in pregnant women has been challenging. Therefore, clinically relevant animal pregnancy models are in high demand for testing vaccine efficacy. We previously reported that a marmoset pregnancy model of ZIKV infection consistently demonstrated vertical transmission from mother to fetus during pregnancy. Using this marmoset model, we also showed that vertical transmission could be prevented by pre-pregnancy vaccination with Zika purified inactivated virus (ZPIV) vaccine. Here, we further examined the efficacy of ZPIV vaccination during pregnancy. Vaccination during pregnancy elicited virus neutralizing antibody responses that were comparable to those elicited by pre-pregnancy vaccination. Vaccination also reduced placental pathology, viral burden and vertical transmission of ZIKV during pregnancy, without causing adverse effects. These results provide key insights into the safety and efficacy of ZPIV vaccination during pregnancy and demonstrate positive effects of vaccination on the reduction of ZIKV infection, an important advance in preparedness for future ZIKV outbreaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne arbovirus that can cause severe congenital birth defects. The utmost goal of ZIKV vaccines is to prevent both maternal-fetal infection and congenital Zika syndrome. A Zika purified inactivated virus (ZPIV) was previously shown to be protective in non-pregnant mice and rhesus macaques. In this study, we further examined the efficacy of ZPIV against ZIKV infection during pregnancy in immunocompetent C57BL6 mice and common marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus). We showed that, in C57BL/6 mice, ZPIV significantly reduced ZIKV-induced fetal malformations. Protection of fetuses was positively correlated with virus-neutralizing antibody levels. In marmosets, the vaccine prevented vertical transmission of ZIKV and elicited neutralizing antibodies that remained above a previously determined threshold of protection for up to 18 months. These proof-of-concept studies demonstrate ZPIV's protective efficacy is both potent and durable and has the potential to prevent the harmful consequence of ZIKV infection during pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This has now been corrected in both the HTML and PDF versions of this Article. Correction to: I npj Vaccines i https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-021-00426-0, published online 27 January 2022 In the original version of this Article, in Fig. [Extracted from the article]

Parent-infant cosleeping occurs in human and nonhuman primates, yet studies on the impact of cosleeping on parental sleep patterns have been limited to human mothers. We examined the effects of cosleeping on the nighttime wakefulness of a biparental New World primate, Wied's black tufted-ear marmoset (Callithrix kuhlii ). We compared the sleep patterns of marmoset parents caring for young infants to those without infants, using an 8 mm videocamera and timelapse VCR under infrared illumination. The presence of young infants significantly impacted the sleep of mothers but not fathers. In fact, mothers rearing young infants were awake >3 times as often as mothers without infants. We also examined the nighttime wakefulness of marmoset parents across the first 9 weeks of infant life (birth through weaning). Although callitrichid mothers tend to reduce their daytime investment in offspring very early in infant life by relinquishing the care of infants to fathers and alloparents, increased nighttime wakefulness was not limited to the early postpartum period for the mothers. Instead, mothers exhibited more nighttime wakefulness than fathers did across the first 9 weeks of infant life. Our results indicate that the presence of infants has a greater impact on the sleep patterns of Callithrix kuhlii mothers than fathers, suggesting that mothers are more involved in infant care than previously realized and that fathers are not nearly as involved in nighttime care as their behavior during the day would suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]