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SINGAPORE: A Singaporean woman has reportedly given birth to a baby with antibodies against the disease, offering a new clue whether the infection can be transferred from mother to child.
The woman was pregnant when she was infected with coronavirus in March. The baby, who was born this month, does not have COVID-19 but has the virus antibodies.
“My doctor suspects I have transferred my COVID-19 antibodies to him during my pregnancy,” Celine Ng-Chan a local newspaper. The woman had been mildly ill from the disease and was discharged from hospital after two and a half weeks.
The World Health Organisation has said it is not yet known whether a pregnant woman with COVID-19 can pass the virus to her fetus or baby during pregnancy or delivery. It said that to date the active virus has not been found in samples of fluid around babies in the womb or in breast milk.
Doctors in China have reported the detection and decline over time of COVID-19 antibodies in babies born to women with coronavirus, according to an article published in October in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The transmission of the coronavirus from mothers to newborns is rare, doctors from New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center reported in October in JAMA Pediatrics.
Singapore has recorded just slightly more than 58,000 COVID infections even though the total number of cases has reached 63 million worldwide.
