brand logo

Pregnant women urged to get vaccine at nearest centre

23 Aug 2021

BY Dinitha Rathnayake Pregnant women are, according to the Family Health Bureau (FHB), encouraged to take the vaccine from the centre closest to them during this lockdown period. Speaking to The Morning, FHB Director Dr. Chithramalee de Silva said that expectant mothers who are experiencing complications are encouraged to visit the relevant medical officer of health (MOH) vaccination centre or the hospital which provides the vaccination. “The vaccine provided for them would be different according to the area they live in and expectant mothers would be able to get the Pfizer-BioNTech or Sinopharm vaccines. We don’t provide the Sputnik V vaccine for pregnant women.” However, expectant mothers who took both vaccine doses of any permitted vaccine and are planning to migrate would be eligible to take the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, six months after the receipt of the last dose. She also added that it is not yet known as to how long the protection of any Covid-19 vaccine would last. Meanwhile, a sharp increase in the participation of pregnant women in the current Covid-19 vaccination programme was observed recently. Speaking to The Morning, Dr. de Silva said that initially, the majority of pregnant women were not comfortable with regard to the administering of the vaccine. “We had to conduct a lot of promotions to enhance their knowledge in order to get rid of the fear about the vaccines because most of the expectant mothers rejected the vaccine due to concerns over their foetus’s health. But during our programmes, we emphasised that it is alright to get the vaccine. It is possible to get the vaccine from a normal vaccine centre now, since we have given the relevant consent letters to the vaccine centres. Expectant mothers can get their vaccine without having to be in any queue since we have advised the relevant authorities to have a separate line for pregnant women.” The current process is to call pregnant women who are identified by the relevant area MOH with the help of midwives for a common clinic on a specific date and to administer the vaccine according to their health status and duration of the pregnancy. Furthermore, vulnerable pregnant women will be vaccinated based on several measures such as their age, morbidity, and susceptibility to disease. “ If pregnant mothers are vaccinated from a vaccination centre, they should inform their midwife about that,” Dr. de Silva noted. She also said that the vaccination of pregnant women is not being carried out at Army-run 24-hour vaccination centres since special consent letters are not being provided by the relevant health authorities to these centres. The vaccination of expectant mothers commenced on 9 June and was scheduled to be completed within a month, despite these issues, The Morning learnt on an earlier occasion. The Health Ministry notified that the Covid-19 vaccines will be given for vulnerable pregnant women from 9 June and this was approved by the Health Ministry at the request of the Sri Lanka College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. According to the Health Ministry, around 275,000 pregnant women are being treated in hospitals islandwide and health sector officials assured that the vaccination drive will give more protection for the pregnant women at risk and to their newborns. The Health Ministry earlier said that more than 2,250 pregnant women were infected with Covid-19.


More News..