Coronavirus: NZ parents refuse to let baby have heart surgery if blood donor is vaccinated

The parents of a four-month-old baby in New Zealand are refusing to allow the child to be given heart surgery if blood from a donor who was vaccinated against Covid-19 is used during the procedure.

In a video interview with an anti-vaccine campaigner, the parents said their four-month-old had been diagnosed with “severe pulmonary valve stenosis” and needed surgery “almost immediately”, The Guardian reported.

But they said they were concerned that blood from someone who was vaccinated against Covid-19 would be used in the procedure.

“We don’t want blood that is tainted by vaccination. That’s the end of the deal – we are fine with anything else these doctors want to do,” the father said, according to The Guardian.

Health New Zealand, which manages the country’s health service and hospitals, has now taken the parents to court, seeking guardianship of the child to be transferred to the courts so that the baby can be given the surgery, the NZ Herald reported.

The parents and the agency met in court on Wednesday, where Paul White, a lawyer for the agency, said the case was urgent because a child with the same condition would normally have been treated weeks ago, according to the Herald.

A group of 100 anti-vaccination supporters gathered outside the building, according to the outlet.

New Zealand Blood Service said that it does not separate blood based on whether the people who donated it was vaccinated or unvaccinated, and that there was no evidence that blood from vaccinated people created any health risks.

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Sue Grey, the lawyer for the parents, said they were looking for better care for their child than what the state was offering, and that their concerns were being dismissed because her clients were being treated as “conspiracy theorists”, the Herald reported.

The parents said they had more than 20 unvaccinated people willing to donate blood, but the New Zealand Blood Service had not approved them to use any of it, the Herald reported.

More than five billion people around the world have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to The New York Times, with the vaccines considered safe for human use and effective against Covid-19.

The New Zealand Blood Service said that no remnants of the vaccine would reach someone through a blood donation, since the vaccine gets “broken down” when it enters the blood stream and any trace amounts left would be filtered out when it is donated.