Hospital Links Pregnant Woman’s Death To COVID-19 Vaccine

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The pregnant woman received her first dose of India's Covishield on Aug. 6
She was admitted to the hospital on Aug. 15
She was declared brain dead a day later and passed away on Aug. 20

A hospital in India has linked the death of a 31-year-old pregnant woman to a complication associated with the COVID-19 vaccine, health officials said.

Mahima Mathew, a resident in the Kottayam district in Kerala, India, was in her first trimester of pregnancy when she died on Aug. 20. According to the initial death report released by officials in Mar Sleeva Medicity, Mathew had received her first dose of Covishield on Aug. 6.

Five days later, the 31-year-old pregnant woman suffered a severe headache and was admitted to the same hospital on Aug. 15. She was declared brain dead a day later. She died on Aug. 20.

Doctors at the hospital said the woman’s cause of death was cerebral venous thrombosis, which occurs when a blood clot forms in the brain’s venous sinuses; and vaccine-associated thrombocytopenia, a condition wherein a patient has a low blood platelet count.

However, health officials for the Kottayam health district said they are still waiting for the final autopsy report.

“We do not understand under what circumstances the hospital has linked the death to COVID vaccine. A week after taking the vaccine shot, she developed a headache. We are awaiting the autopsy report. Besides, the death would be audited by an expert team of doctors. We can come to a conclusion only then,’’ said Dr. Jacob Varghese, the district’s medical officer, The Indian Express reported.

A growing number of researches have shown that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe for pregnant women. In an April study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers said they did not find any safety signals among the 35,691 pregnant women who received a shot of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also released new data on Aug. 11 that showed they did not find any safety concerns for pregnant people who were vaccinated.

“The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky wrote in a media release.

As of Aug. 23, India has administered more than 581 million shots, which covers 23% of the country’s total population, according to Yahoo Finance.