Foetus catches COVID-19 in the womb, dies in Israel

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An Israeli hospital said on Saturday that a fetus stillborn from a woman infected with the coronavirus was also found to be carrying the virus.

It was the second such reported instance in Israel.

The hospital said it could not currently link the virus to the death itself.

The woman, infected with COVID-19, was in the 36th week of her pregnancy when she arrived at the hospital over the weekend after feeling ill, Hebrew media reports said.

Meir Medical Center doctors found the unborn child had died in the womb, and a subsequent lab test revealed that the fetus was also infected with the virus.

Last week a similar case was reported when the fetus of a 29-year-old woman, in her 25th week of pregnancy was found to be carrying the virus in tests after a stillbirth.

In the case last week, the hospital said there was a high probability that the fetus had died from COVID-19 complications.

“The fetus was infected through the placenta and with a very high degree of certainty, [we can say] died due to coronavirus,” Dr Tal Brosh, head of the Infectious Disease Department at the Assuta Hospital in Ashdod, told the Ynet news site.

Dr Yossi Tobin, the director of the maternity ward at the hospital, agreed that because the fetus was infected in utero, it was probable that the death was caused by the coronavirus.

The country’s health ministry has advised pregnant women to get the coronavirus vaccine after several women expecting fell seriously ill, with several babies delivered prematurely via Caesarean section due to life-threatening risks to the mothers and the children.

Some of the women are suspected of having been infected with the so-called British strain of the coronavirus, a mutated strain that is believed to be more infectious and more deadly.

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