A baby was reported to have been born with COVID-19 antibodies in Singapore last month.
The baby, named Aldrin, is the second child of 31-year-old Celine Ng-Chan, a Singaporean who contracted the virus during her third month of pregnancy, The Post Millenial reported.
Ng-Chan was infected by the virus together with her 58-year old mother and her first child after their family vacation in Europe last March. While her husband was spared from it, she and her first child recovered after more than two weeks of hospital confinement. Her mother, on the other hand, almost succumbed to the virus.
Ng-Chan expressed relief that her child was born healthy and free of the virus aside from having antibodies for it. She said she was grateful for this and for having experienced an easy pregnancy eventhough inflicted by the virus.
Born on November 7, Aldrin is now part of a medical research being conducted by local doctors on the virus. Aldrin was born at the National University Hospital of Singapore.
In an interview with Singapore's The Straits Times, Ng-Chan expressed that her desire to help fight the virus is the primary reason she enlisted herself and her son to the research.
"Being one of the few pregnant moms in Singapore to have COVID during pregnancy, I think it's very important to be part of the research so that we can find out more and maybe fight the virus better," she said.
Ng-Chan narrated in the video of the said interview that her doctor asked her a few weeks before delivery if she wanted to be "part of the pregnant moms and babies research" to which she oblidged.
The Post Millenial reported that it was customary for the National University Hospital to assess children born by COVID-19 recoveries. A special team of doctors are actually assigned to attend to these mothers and their newborn.
"They took his blood at birth to test his antibodies," Ng-Chan revealed on what was done to her child in line with the research.
Initial findings of the research showed that Ng-Chan does not have the COVID-19 antibodies anymore and that Aldrin now have them.
"The doctors suspect they are transferred--the antibodies--to him during pregnancy," she explained.
According to Aljazeera, a report published in the October issue of Emerging Infections Diseases reveal that babies born by COVID-19 recoveries do exhibit having antibodies against the virus but for a limited time only.
Aljazeera also pointed out that coronavirus transmissions are rare. It cited the World Health Organization currently has no data regarding the transmission of the virus from the mother to the infant.
In terms of the incidence of COVID-19, Singapore currently has 58,218 cases, 58,134 recoveries, and 29 deaths. This makes Singapore one of the countries in South East Asia with the lowest recorded cases of COVID-19.
India, its neighboring country in the region, actually ranks 2nd in the World Health Organization Coronavirus Disease Dashboard Data Table with 9.4M cases and 137,139 cumulative deaths. The United States still ranks first with 13M cases of COVID-19 and 263,946 cumulative deaths. Globally, there are 62M cases of COVID-19 with 1.4M cumulative deaths as of date.
