Clearing all doubts, an expert on Friday claimed that the Covid vaccine was all safe for expecting and lactating mothers.
Dr. Tapan Majumder, HOD of Microbiology department, Agartala Government Medical College (AGMC), said when the vaccination process started in Tripura in January this year, there was no clinical trial of the vaccine on the lactating mother or pregnant women initially.
“As the researches made progress, it has been experimentally proved that the vaccine is safe for expecting and lactating mothers. In Tripura, the vaccination for this particular category started in May last and there was no incident of any negative impact so far,” Dr. Majumder told a press conference on Friday.
Briefing the media about the technical aspects of the vaccine, the microbiologist pointed out that there is no live virus in the vaccine doses.
He said the safety of the vaccine in case of expecting or lactating mothers was already ‘confirmed’.
“Covishield is a genetically engineered vaccine with a protein of the non-replicating virus. So, production of live virus from vaccination is not at all possible. In case of breast feeding, even if the mother is already infected with the virus, it doesn’t spread,” Dr. Majumder explained.
After taking Covishield dose, it generally takes two weeks to develop antibody– once the lactating mother develops antibody, it will indirectly give protection to the baby also through breast feeding, he said.
Clearing all doubts, he appealed to all to take vaccines so that the projected third wave of coronavirus can’t affect the people– the vaccine is a must to stay protected amid this deadly coronavirus.
Health officials including Dr. Sanjib Kumar Debbarma (paediatrician) were present in the press conference.
