ATLANTA — The COVID-19 vaccine will soon be available and healthcare workers will possibly be among the first to get it. About 75 percent of all healthcare workers are women, according to the World Health Organization, which means thousands of females will soon test the new vaccine.
Questions surrounding whether pregnant healthcare workers should take it remain unclear.
Dr. Sujatha Reddy of Premier Care for Women said that right now it's too early to make a confident recommendation.
"Right now we are not going to get a blanket statement from the CDC or FDA specifically towards pregnant women," says Reddy.
Earlier this week, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices acknowledged that those workers are at heightened risk of COVID-19 mortality, but also noted that none of the initial vaccine products have been tested in pregnant people specifically.
“It’s very rare that pregnant women are included in studies because you have so many unknown factors and very few women volunteer to subject their unborn child things," explained Reddy.
On Monday, Governor Brian Kemp announced the vaccine could be available in Georgia as early as the second week of December.
In his roundtable discussion, Kemp also addressed new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations developed by the ACIP to first offer a vaccine once approved by the FDA to the nation's 21 million healthcare personnel on the front lines and the 3 million residents and staff in long-term care facilities.