Pregnant deaths from COVID-19 in Sub Saharan Africa
A new multicenter study surrounding six countries in Africa reported
that people who are pregnant and hospitalized with covid-19 are dying at a
larger rate when compared to pregnant people who don’t have covid or people who
have covid but are not pregnant. University of Pittsburgh School of Public
Health infectious diseases epidemiologist led the research which was published
in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The data which was
collected from women of child-bearing age who were hospitalized during the time
period between March 2020 and March 2021 studied the results of more than 1300
female patients in one of the six African countries. The three categories of
the study included COVID-19 affected pregnant women, COVID-19 affected
non-pregnant women, pregnant women without COVID-19 and the six countries
included were Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo
It was
noted that pregnant women with COVID-19 had double the rate of ICU admissions
and supplemental oxygen usage along with a five times greater death rate
according to the research.
Even tuberculosis and HIV rates are higher in Sub-Saharan Africa when
compared to U.S. With regards to this the team also examined the effect of
these infections on their study subjects as previously published studies showed
conflicting results. The result reported doubled risk of ICU care for both
pregnant and non-pregnant women with HIV or with a history of TB.
John W. Mellors, M.D., who is the co-author of the study and also the
chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in Pitt's School of Medicine said
that there is a severe risk of COVID-9 during pregnancy due to HIV and TB
infections which imposes the necessity for prenatal vaccination against
COVID-19.
Nachega, a faculty at Stellenbosch University in South Africa along with
being a part of Pitt Public Health informed that the false information
surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine which causes hesitancy should be treated as a
global issue even though slight progress has been noted with regards to the
vaccine supply quantity increase in Africa. Fellow researchers along with
Nachega highlighted the fact in order to improve mother and infant care and
results, we need to target COVID-19 vaccinations to this population in an
editorial that was published alongside the study.
Nachega also talked about how all the false information and conjecture
around the COVID-19 vaccine on various social media and other platforms have
contributed to the low vaccine uptake and pertaining hesitancy which includes
infertility or even fetal harm. Therefore, he feels that as much as resources
are being directed toward vaccination promotion it is also important to stop
the spreading of misinformation among people on these platforms.