Doctors And Medical Experts Are Urging The Centre To Include Pregnant And Lactating Women In The COVID Vaccination Drive

Doctors And Medical Experts Are Urging The Centre To Include Pregnant And Lactating Women In The COVID Vaccination Drive

A few days ago, I was thinking about all the things we can do once a majority of the population has been vaccinated against the coronavirus. Forgive me for daydreaming, but there isn’t much to do nowadays in case you haven’t noticed. Unfortunately, though, the vaccination drive in our country is abysmal. It’s insanely complicated and there are never any slots available. Not to mention, pregnant and lactating mothers are included in this drive at all. Don’t they need to be vaccinated too? Considering they are more at risk than anyone? To change this, medical experts have urged the centre to incorporate pregnant and lactating women in the vaccination drive as well. Hopefully, their pleas will not fall on deaf ears.

Currently, doctors can’t advise pregnant and lactating women to get vaccinated. This is until the union health ministry changes and revises its guidelines. Now, however, medical experts have urged the centre to permit pregnant and lactating women to get vaccinated. While the doctors say it’s completely safe, the centre has qualms considering pregnant and breastfeeding women were never a part of the clinical trial conducted for the vaccine.

Doctors all around the country are rallying to get the centre to include pregnant and lactating women in the vaccination drive. According to reports, Pune based gynaecologist Sanjay Gupte, who is the chairman (ethical committee) of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, said, “Covishield and Covaxin do not contain any live virus. They are non-replicating virus vaccines. There is no biological mechanism that can cause infection to the mother or unborn foetus. So there is no transmission in pregnancy or through breast milk. Besides, it is unethical to deny them their fundamental right to health.”

Also Read: The J&K Government Will Not Administer COVID 19 Vaccinations To Pregnant And Lactating Women

Dr Sanjay also added that countries abroad such as the USA, UK and Australia have successfully included pregnant and lactating women in their vaccination programmes. In fact, just last month a study about the effects of the COVID vaccination in pregnant and lactating women was published in the USA. Infectious disease expert, Sanjay Pujari who is also a member of the Centre’s National Task Force on Covid-19, said that a similar study is currently underway. It uses the AstraZeneca vaccine (Covisheild in India). He said, “We can have the vaccination drive open for pregnant women once we have the adequate safety data from that study.”

Hopefully, the centre will understand and take the claims of these doctors into consideration. It’s very important for everyone in our country to be vaccinated, the sooner the better!

Read The Forward That Said Menstruating Women Shouldn’t Take The Coronavirus Vaccine? It’s Completely False

Mitali Shah

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