Pregnant, breastfeeding women can now get the COVID-19 jab

THE HEALTH MINISTRY HAS ROLLED OUT ANOTHER PLANK OF ITS
VACCINATION PLAN this time targeting lactating mothers and pregnant women.
Mothers still breastfeeding their babies and pregnant women can now get inoculated with
AstraZeneca, Sinopharm or Sputnik V vaccines, although a recent local showed they prefer
Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.
“In terms of pregnant women, they have to be enrolled at one of our clinics so we can verify the
pregnancy. In terms of how do we know who is breastfeeding, again, when you were discharged
from your clinic, having been pregnant and delivered the baby, when you’re discharged from the
hospital or the clinic, you will get a clinic card,” health minister Dr Frank Anthony explained.
There were lots of skepticism among Guyanese earlier this year surrounding safety when
inoculating the two groups against the pandemic because of data scarcity.
“Most of the obstetric societies globally have been encouraging, pregnant women to get
vaccinated in any one of the trimesters whether first second or third, because the vaccine is safe
and it is protective,” Dr. Anthony, a Cuban-trained specialist explained.
“We have seen a number of cases of persons who are pregnant coming in with COVID-19. We
have seen that at the Oceanview Hospital, we have seen that here at the Georgetown Hospital
and at several of our other regional hospitals and all of these women are unvaccinated,” the
Minister said.
He continued, “Some of them, luckily, would have had a milder form of the disease while others
go on to have a very severe presentation of the disease and in a few cases, we had to do
emergency C-sections. This can be avoided if women take the vaccine during their pregnancy.”
Doctors will be conducting sensitisation exercises at various health centres across the
country to help educate women on the importance of taking the covid-19 jab, Minister
Anthony said.