SARS COV-2 and Pregnancy: Autoimmune Implications |Biomedgrid

Historically pregnant women have been more severely affected by outbreaks of respiratory infections compared to women of similar non-pregnant age groups. This has been described in the 1918 influenza epidemic, the 1957-1958 Asian influenza epidemic, and more recently, in the 2009 H1N1 and SARS pandemic in 2003 (It should be remembered that SARS-CoV is also a coronavirus, and shares 85% of the genomic sequence with SARS-CoV-2). In all these epidemics, pregnant women showed a high case fatality rate, increased risk of admission to intensive care units, increased risk of mechanical ventilation and other infectious complications [1].