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A 32-year-old woman has died from COVID-19 and doctors have been unable to save her 30-week fetus in an emergency cesarean section, a Jerusalem hospital said on Sunday.
The woman, Osnat Ben Shitrit, was in good health until she recently contracted the coronavirus and had already had four smooth pregnancies that ended in single births, a spokeswoman for Hadassah Medical Center said. to The Times of Israel.
The woman had not been vaccinated.
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The fetus had not been infected with the virus, but was delivered in critical condition and did not survive, Hadassah said.
A COVID-19 patient receives a visit from his family at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem, February 1, 2021 (Olivier Fitoussi / Flash90)
The Hadassah news rippled throughout Israel’s healthcare system, with doctors warning that it illustrates the heightened danger that the UK variant, which now accounts for almost all cases of Israeli COVID, poses to pregnant women and fetuses.
While concerns about the British strain have recently focused on its transmissibility and not on its virulence, it is believed to have a more serious impact on pregnant women than the regular strain. Last month, as the British variant spread, Israel approved vaccines for pregnant women and began encouraging women to get the vaccine.
“This news raises a red flag regarding the dangers of COVID-19 for pregnant women,” Professor Galia Grisaru-Soen, director of the pediatric infectious diseases department at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, told The Times of Israel.
Ben Shitrit, a resident of the Jerusalem area, was admitted to hospital last Tuesday with respiratory distress and began to deteriorate rapidly on Saturday evening. Doctors noticed damage to several of his organs and a large team, including experts in cardiology and gynecology, were gathered at his bedside.
A medical team wearing safety gear as they work in the coronavirus ward at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem on February 1, 2021 (Olivier Fitoussi / Flash90)
Doctors made “very prolonged” attempts at resuscitation and performed an emergency Caesarean, according to a statement from Hadassah. But the mother passed away, and “despite tremendous efforts to save and save the life of the fetus in the premature intensive care unit,” she did not survive.
Staff were left in an “emotional storm,” and the hospital “shares the family’s deep grief,” the statement said.
Grisaru-Soen said: “The new variants, British and maybe South African. seem to be more dangerous for pregnant women, and we should encourage pregnant women, at least after the first trimester, to be vaccinated. “
On Tuesday, a stillborn fetus of a woman infected with the coronavirus in the city of Ashdod was found to carry the virus, after being infected via the placenta.
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