Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 18: She may be the first child in the world to have been born with antibodies against Corona. Though scientific studies are yet to be carried out in depth to reach the conclusion, some medical practitioners in Florida, the United States, claimed that a girl child born to a mother having received the first doze of vaccine during pregnancy, is carrying antibodies against the novel Coronavirus.
“Here, we report the first known case of an infant with SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies detectable in cord blood after maternal vaccination,” noted the co-authors, Paul Gilbert and Chad Rudnick from Florida Atlantic University in the US.
According to the yet-to-be peer-reviewed study, posted in the preprint server medRxiv, the mother had received a single dose of the Moderna mRNA vaccine at 36 weeks and three days of her gestation period.
Even as in India the pregnant women and lactating mothers have been barred from receiving the Corona vaccine till its safety was guaranteed, the pregnant woman in the US not only received the vaccine, she also gave birth to a healthy child and received the second doze as a lactating mother.
According to reports, three weeks after receiving the first doze of vaccine, she gave birth to a “vigorous, healthy, full-term girl” whose blood sample was taken immediately after birth and revealed the presence of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the study noted.
The woman, who has been breastfeeding the baby exclusively, received the second dose of the vaccine as per the normal 28-day vaccination protocol timeline, the doctors noted.
While earlier studies showed that the passage of antibodies from Covid-recovered mothers to their foetuses via the placenta was lower than expected, the current research suggests “potential for protection and infection risk reduction from SARS-CoV-2 with maternal vaccination.”
However, Gilbert and Rudnick note that further long-term studies are needed to quantify the antibody response in babies born to vaccinated mothers.
“Protective efficacy in newborns and ideal timing of maternal vaccination remains unknown,” the pediatricians wrote in the study.
“We urge other investigators to create pregnancy and breastfeeding registries as well as conduct efficacy and safety studies of the Covid-19 vaccines in pregnant and breastfeeding woman and their offspring,” they added.