Risk of congenital birth defects during COVID-19 pandemic: Draw attention to the physicians and policymakers

摘要

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), repre- sents a global public health emergency with considerable morbid- ity and mortality. Since its first description in late 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has already spread worldwide. As of mid-May 2020, over 4.5 million people have already been infected globally by SARS-CoV-2 with more than 300 000 deaths [1]. It is almost clear that SARS-CoV-2 has infected both male and female in almost same proportions. Although every human is susceptible to the infection, data show that relatively more female has been infected at their active repro- ductive age (between 20 years to 49 years) [2]. Therefore, it is likely that numerous females during their pregnancy have already been infected with SARS-CoV-2. As the world is in the middle of a pandemic, the majority efforts have been attributed to innovation of anti-COVID therapy for management of patients and development of prophylactic vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 so that transmission cycle of the virus can be contained. However, little has been explored about SARS-CoV-2 infection and the implications of an- ti-COVID-19 drugs on pregnancy.