Health Ministry allows coronavirus vaccination for pregnant women

New Delhi : The Union Health Ministry on Friday allowed coronavirus vaccination for pregnant women. Addressing a press conference on behalf of the Union Health Ministry, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director-General Dr. Balram Bhargava said, "The Ministry of Health has given guidelines that the vaccine can be given to the pregnant woman."

“The vaccine is useful for the pregnant woman and it should be given,” Dr. Bhargava said.

He mentioned that there are a lot of testing needs to be done before a vaccine is officially launched for children.

“There is only one country that is giving vaccines to children at the moment. Whether very small children will ever need vaccines, is still a question. Till such time, we have more data on vaccination of children, we would not be in a position to vaccinate children at large,” the ICMR director said.

“However, we have started a study on children between 2 years to 18 years and we will have a result on it by September,” he added.

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Meanwhile, Delta Plus variant cases have started to come in the nation. So far 48 new cases of Delta variant has been registered in eight states and Union Territories.

Dr Singh said, “Eight states are important where we have found more than 50 per cent of the variant of concern. These are Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Telangana, and West Bengal.”

“Covidshield and Covaxin work against the variants of SARS CoV 2 — alpha, beta, gamma as well as delta. Delta Plus is present in 12 countries. As many as 48 cases have been identified in India but more importantly, they have been very localised,” Dr Bhargava said regarding the Delta Plus variant of COVID-19.