FOUR out of the seven maternal deaths in Trinidad and Tobago this year were due to Covid-19.
This was revealed by the Director in the Directorate of Women’s Health Dr Adesh Sirjusingh at the Ministry of Health virtual presser on Monday.
He said there were also four cases where mothers transmitted the virus to their children.
Dr Sirjusingh said, “We have now four confirmed cases in our database of mother-to-child transmission, from mother to child of Covid and the outcomes have not been good.”
Of the four cases, he noted, that two newborns were asymptomatic, one is pending further investigation and the other resulted in a stillbirth.
He said that since the pandemic started, 1,002 pregnant women have contracted Covid-19 with 944 this year.
The doctor said 279 of these cases were recorded from October, in the third wave of Covid-19 infections in Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr Sirjusingh said that as of October 31, 2021, there have been 12,192 births for the year, 90.3% of which took place in the public healthcare system.
He said 962 women began vaccination during pregnancy.
Dr Sirjusingh said since 2017 there were no more than four maternal deaths per year.
He said there were other cases where Covid-19 led to complications in pregnancy such as pre-term and stillbirths.
