Following the health ministry’s decision to study JABS for safety in pregnant women and newborns, women visiting antenatal clinics may be asked if they have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
An official said there is no concrete data about vaccinated pregnant women: In most cases, the pregnancy information is not provided by the vaccine clinics, thereby underreporting the immunization status of pregnant women on the CoWIN platform.
According to the CoWIN portal run by the National Health Authority, around 960 million doses have been administered to women.
“There is no concrete data on what percentage of pregnant women are vaccinated. For example, if a woman receives her vaccination today and becomes pregnant after two or three months, that woman’s vaccination data will not be counted as expectant mothers, or if a woman is in the first trimester of her pregnancy. and is unaware of the fact that her vaccination data is also not recorded in the category of pregnant women. And at the same time, it is not too focused that the vaccinator has to compulsorily ask about the pregnancy status of the woman visiting the vaccination centre,” the official said.
Most women of reproductive age (15-45 years) are vaccinated with at least one dose of COVID vaccination.
The Department of Health, which collates data on adverse events after vaccination, may have data on 2.5-3 million pregnant women who have been vaccinated, but this seems to be incorrectly documented.
“Therefore, there are plans to start a study in antenatal clinics to know in what proportion women have been vaccinated and to monitor the safety of the vaccine in this group and their newborns,” the official said.
The matter has been discussed several times in meetings of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization, where concerns were also expressed over the slow pace of COVID-19 vaccination among pregnant women, especially booster doses as data from pregnant women were not available. has not been well documented.
In July last year, the Union Health Ministry had allowed vaccination to pregnant women following the recommendation of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization.
About 30 million women become pregnant every year in India. Emailed queries to the spokespersons of the National Health Authority and the Ministry of Health did not elicit any response.
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