There are 38 patients currently hospitalised at the National Infectious Diseases hospital at Liliendaal, Georgetown and of that number, 23 of them are pregnant women.
During his COVID-199 update on Friday, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony highlighted that there are 63 people hospitalised in medical institutions across Guyana after they started to experience the more severe and life-threatening symptoms of COVID-19.
Of that number, 38 people are hospitalised at the Liliendaal facility with 15 people who are more critically ill receiving care in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Because a majority of these patients are pregnant women, the Health Minister urged pregnant women to get vaccinated against the deadly virus. As he stated previously, vaccination will help to protect people from experiencing the more serious and life-threatening symptoms of COVID-19, if they experience any symptoms at all.
During his update on Thursday, Dr. Anthony explained that during pregnancy, women’s immune systems may become a bit weakened and as such, they may be more vulnerable to contracting the virus.
“This can be avoided or they will have a milder form of the disease if they were vaccinated,” Dr. Anthony emphasised.
Addressing concerns that becoming vaccinated may affect a pregnant woman’s unborn child, the Health Minister said medical studies show that getting vaccinated while pregnant is safe.
New data published by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has found that it is indeed safe for pregnant women to get vaccinated. According to information released by the UK government, data shows that vaccines have good birth outcomes in vaccinated women who had their babies up to August this year, notably, with no consistent differences between vaccinated women and all women in the figures for stillbirths, low baby birth weights and premature births.
Further, a release from the UK government noted that around 84,000 pregnant women have taken the jab in the UK and senior clinicians across the health system are therefore encouraging women to get the vaccine urgently to protect themselves and their babies from the virus.
