Sheffield City Council encourage women to get Covid-19 vaccine after PHE consultant provides fertility reassurances

Sheffield City Council have urged women to get the vaccine against Covid-19, following a video from a Public Health England consultant who provided reassurances about the jab impacting fertility.
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The local authority reminded women in the city that the immunisation jab was safe and that ‘most young women of childbearing age’ will have had 23 vaccinations by the time they reach 20, after false rumours that the injection would impact fertility circulated online.

Sheffield council’s response came after Yorkshire and Humber’s Public Health England Centre shared a video of consultant Dr Gayatri Amirthalingam, who works in the National Immunisation team, explaining how there are no concerns that the coronavirus vaccines affect present or future fertility.

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In the video, Dr Amirthalingam said: “If you are planning to get pregnant it’s important to know there is no evidence that this vaccine will affect your fertility.

Nurse Sally Griffiths prepares to administer an injection of AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine to a patient at the vaccination centre set up at St Columba's church in Sheffield. Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images.Nurse Sally Griffiths prepares to administer an injection of AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine to a patient at the vaccination centre set up at St Columba's church in Sheffield. Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images.
Nurse Sally Griffiths prepares to administer an injection of AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine to a patient at the vaccination centre set up at St Columba's church in Sheffield. Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images.

"Studies have shown that like other vaccines, once you are vaccinated with this vaccine the components of this vaccine travel to your lymph glands and within a matter of days they are removed as waste products from your body.

"And so there is no mechanisms by which this vaccine could affect your current or future fertility.”

Government information about the Covid-19 vaccines said the early immunisation jabs do not contain organisms that can multiply in the body, so they cannot infect an unborn baby in the womb.

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However the vaccines have not yet been tested in pregnancy, so until more information is available, those who are pregnant should not routinely have these injections.

Dr. Gayatri Amirthalingam from Public Health England.Dr. Gayatri Amirthalingam from Public Health England.
Dr. Gayatri Amirthalingam from Public Health England.

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