Expert claims COVID vaccines do not cause infertility or higher pregnancy wastage

Srinagar: With governments across the globe getting their citizens vaccinated to win the fight against the dreaded COVID-19, top health experts addressed the concerns of young women, saying that the Coronavirus jabs do not cause infertility or higher pregnancy wastage.

Terming COVID vaccine the ''biggest'' gift of science to humanity, Doctor Association Kashmir (DAK) President Nisar-ul-Hassan said that misinformation about the safety of COVID vaccine has created confusion among people. “It is unfortunate that misinformation about the vaccine has been published even by some big media houses. We need to understand that the vaccine is the only tool that can help fight COVID-19. The safety and accuracy of the vaccine has been proven without any doubt by evidence and clinical trials. The efficacy of these vaccines are 70 to 90 per cent, which is way above which is required according to WHO guidelines,” Dr Hassan, who is an influenza expert, told UNI.

Top Pulmonologist Dr Parvaiz Koul said that the fears of infertility and pregnancy wastage due to mRNA vaccines are ill founded. “Lots of young women are concerned about the concerns of infertility as a result of COVID vaccination,” he said.

He said these have resulted from the report of some similarity between the virus spike protein and a placental protein and the fear that antibodies generated against the virus would lead to placental dysfunction and pregnancy wastage.

However, Dr Koul said infected pregnant females have delivered normal babies and that fact is ultra virus to the proposition. “Those fearing it may take comfort from the fact that there is genetic homogeneity between the virus protein and common human proteins like haemoglobin and collagen (even more than that for placental proteins). So the fears of infertility and pregnancy wastage due to mRNA vaccines are ill founded,” he said.

Parents of many young girls are reluctant to get their daughters vaccinated as some reports had claimed that the vaccine could result in infertility.

Dr Hassan said due to high efficacy of the vaccine, it not only help in reducing the effect of the virus, but has also resulted in decreasing the death curve due to the infection. “Only even a single death has been directly linked with the vaccine across the world,” he said.

Answering a question, Dr Hassan said it is a myth that the vaccine causes infertility in the human population. “In fact, the trials have suggested that vaccination is safe even for pregnant and lactating women. Thousand of pregnant women have been vaccinated in America. It not only gives protection to pregnant and lactating women, but also to the new born babies and infants,” he said.

Dr Hassan said in India also vaccination has started for lactating mothers. “These vaccines have proven even safe for children also… We haven’t started vaccinating children in India, but in many countries, children have also been vaccinated… in fact it has proven 100 per cent effective among children,” he added.

The DAK president said that the administration should take strict action against anyone or any organization that spreads misinformation about vaccination as it is the only tool that will help in ending the pandemic.

Meanwhile, strict restrictions continued even as there was slight dip in the number of fresh Coronavirus positive cases though there was no letup in the deaths due to the infection in Kashmir valley, where the COVID curfew entered fifth week on Thursday.

The vaccination drive his picked up pace with authorities targeting high risk groups, including shopkeepers, journalists, traders and lawyers in the valley, where thousands of people have been fined and arrested for violating COVID curfew and other guidelines since April 29.(UNI)