SYDNEY, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Contracting bird flu is fatal for a vast majority of pregnant women, an Australian research has said.

The research, which was published on Friday by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, systematically reviewed over 1,500 research papers and examined 30 reported cases of women who contracted bird flu while pregnant.

It found that bird flu was fatal for 27 of the 30 women, a mortality rate of 90 percent.

The study was published as human cases linked to outbreaks of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) strains H5N1 and H5N2 increase globally.

The research team said that the findings showed that the inclusion of pregnant women as early as possible in pandemic planning must be a key priority.

Rachael Purcell, a co-author of the study from MCRI, said that despite being a high-risk population, pregnant women are often excluded from vaccine trials and face delayed entry into public health vaccination programs.

"A paradigm shift is required to routinely include pregnant women in pandemic preparedness programs to avoid preventable deaths," she said in a media release. Enditem

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