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- Dr. Anthony Fauci said there have been “no red flags” with pregnant women getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
- About 10,000 pregnant women have been vaccinated so far in the US, Fauci said.
- These women were healthcare workers who would rather get the vaccine than risk infection, he said.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious-disease expert in the US, said Wednesday there have been “no red flags” from 10,000 pregnant women who have had the COVID-19 vaccine in the US.
Pregnant women and children were initially excluded from clinical vaccine trials.
The Food and Drug Administration has found “thus far, and we’ve got to be careful, but thus far, no red flags about that, about pregnant women,” he said in an interview with The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Fauci, who is Biden’s chief medical advisor, said the pregnant women who have received the shot were healthcare workers who would rather get a vaccine than risk infection.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said January 25 that a lack of data meant pregnant women shouldn't get Moderna's coronavirus vaccine, unless the benefits of protection outweigh the risks, for example in health workers at high risk of exposure. It issued the same advice for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on January 8.
The WHO withdrew this advice January 26, saying "we don't have any specific reason to believe there will be specific risks that would outweigh the benefits of vaccination for pregnant women."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised that pregnant women should consult their healthcare provider before getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
So far in America, about 27.2 million people have received at least one dose of a vaccine, and about 6.4 million people have been fully vaccinated with two shots, according to the CDC.