New Zealand: Parents refuse ‘blood graft’ for their sick child

New Zealand authorities on Tuesday asked the courts to give them custody of an infant whose parents, fearing he will receive blood from donors vaccinated against Covid-19, oppose a life-saving surgery. Health authorities said they urgently filed the request with the High Court in Auckland, New Zealand’s capital city, on Tuesday.

The four-month-old baby, whose identity is being kept secret by court order, suffers, according to his mother, from pulmonic valvular stenosis, a heart condition requiring surgery. But that intervention has been delayed because the parents are demanding that the blood, which could be given to the child in the operating room, be from donors who have not received Covid-19 messenger RNA vaccines.

Their request was denied because hospitals in New Zealand do not separate blood donated from vaccinated people from those of unvaccinated people, and neither category poses a greater risk than the other.

In “the best interests of the child”

The authorities asked the court to grant them partial custody of the baby. If the court grants their request, the parents will retain their authority over the child, with the exception of medical care.

Medical services said they went to court “taking into account the best interests of the child” and after “long conversations” with the family.

About 150 anti-vaccination protesters gathered outside an Oakland courthouse on Tuesday to show support for the parents.

The aggressive measures taken by New Zealand at the start of the coronavirus pandemic were widely considered among the most successful in the world, as even before the introduction of vaccines, the country had only experienced a low death rate. But the strict travel restrictions and lockdowns have been criticized as an attack on freedoms and have fueled the emergence of small but very vocal anti-vaccination and anti-restriction groups.