COVID-19 Antibodies Found In Newborns In Singapore

JAKARTA - A Singaporean woman, who tested positive for COVID-19 while pregnant in March 2020, gave birth to a baby whose blood was found to have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the infectious disease.

Reported by Antara, Sunday, November 29, the findings, for some scientists, provide new clues regarding the possibility that COVID-19 can be transmitted from mother to baby during pregnancy.

However, the baby born this month was confirmed negative for COVID-19. However, he stored the COVID-19 antibodies in his body, the mother was quoted as saying in The Straits Times newspaper, Sunday.

"The doctor who treated me suspected that I gave COVID-19 antibodies to my child during pregnancy," said Celine Ng-Chan, the baby's mother, when interviewed by The Straits Times.

Ng-Chan had less severe symptoms when he tested positive for COVID-19 and he was discharged from the hospital after being hospitalized for two and a half weeks, The Straits Times reported.

Ng-Chan and the National University Hospital of Singapore (NUH), where the baby was born, have not responded to questions regarding the findings.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had not been able to confirm the possibility that a pregnant woman who was positive for COVID-19 could transmit the virus to her fetus or baby during pregnancy or during childbirth.

So far, traces of SARS-CoV-2 have not been found in fluid samples in utero or in breast milk.

According to a scientific article published in the journal Latest Infectious Diseases in October 2020, a number of doctors in China reported decreased levels of COVID-19 antibodies in babies born to mothers with COVID-19.

Meanwhile, doctors from New York-Presbyterian / Columbia University Irving Medical Center, through their scientific articles published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, said cases of transmission of COVID-19 from mothers to their newborns were still quite rare.