PETALING JAYA: Health officers should not scare or deter pregnant women from getting vaccinated against Covid-19, says Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

       "To health officers scaring pregnant mothers, this should not happen. Pregnant mothers must come forward to be vaccinated," he told a press conference on Friday (Aug 13).

       Dr Noor Hisham also urged pregnant women to register for vaccination under the MySejahtera app because it was the best way to prevent serious Covid-19 effects.

       He was referring to allegations on social media, claiming that health officers had been scaring pregnant women against vaccination.

       As of Aug 8 this year, Dr Noor Hisham said a total of 146,759 pregnant women had received at least one dose of vaccine while 20% of them were fully vaccinated.

       Dr Noor Hisham also said that there were no pregnant women who died from Covid-19 complications last year but there was a drastic increase this year.

       He said up to Aug 9, there were 70 cases of pregnant women who died from Covid-19 complications.

       "The drastic increase in deaths were reported since June this year," he said.

       There were 850 cases of pregnant women being infected with Covid-19 as of May this year and the number increased to 899 cases in June.

       Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba, who spoke later, said medical frontliners have been told to always give the appropriate explanation to those who were getting vaccinated.

       Dr Adham said there was a nationwide circular detailing appropriate advice that medical officers should give to pregnant women.

       "Among them are about the risks and benefits of being vaccinated," he said.

       Recently, Dr Noor Hisham raised concerns over the low percentage of registration among pregnant women for vaccination via MySejahtera, which stood at about 40%.