Recently, a newborn at Wuhan Children's Hospital tested positive for nucleic acid after birth, which has attracted widespread attention. Does this mean that the novel coronavirus may be transmitted vertically from mother to child?
On the morning of February 6, Qiao Jie, a member of the national medical team aiding Hubei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the president of Peking University Third Hospital, who is also an obstetrics expert, analyzed this issue.
Qiao Jie, a member of the national medical team aiding Hubei and president of Peking University Third Hospital:
Currently, we have obtained some relatively complete data, including nucleic acid tests of newborn throat swabs, umbilical cord blood tests, and breast milk tests from infected pregnant women who underwent cesarean sections in the operating room. Although the number of cases is limited to less than 10, the results so far are all negative.
This case at Wuhan Children's Hospital, where the newborn tested positive and showed mild pneumonia symptoms 36 hours after birth, has attracted widespread attention. From what I understand, the newborn's mother was a confirmed COVID-19 patient, so the newborn was transferred to the pediatric ward after birth. The pediatric ward performed a throat swab test 36 hours later, and the result was positive.
However, by this time, 36 hours had passed since delivery, and there had been other forms of contact. In this case, placental and umbilical cord blood tests were performed quickly during delivery, and fortunately, the results were negative.
We cannot say for sure that there is mother-to-child vertical transmission at this time because the number of cases is relatively small, and we cannot say for sure that it does not exist. However, we have now conducted definitive and relatively complete sample collection, including umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid from the mother, and throat swabs from the newborn. In the less than 10 cases of evidence, all of them are currently negative.
Meanwhile, several other hospitals also performed throat swab tests on newborns during cesarean sections. Currently, fewer than 20 cases have been collected, and none of them have tested positive for throat swabs. There is only this one case so far, but the test was performed 36 hours after birth, so we cannot definitively say it is mother-to-child transmission.
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