spot_img
29 C
Philippines
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Vaccines know no nationality

- Advertisement -

"Let’s not attach flags to the brands."

 

Funny how some people equate the efficacy of some anti-COVID 19 vaccines to the country of manufacture. There would have been no problem if these people are really experts on this particular field, but unfortunately, just they are like this writer who has no idea on the field of vaccines, except for what we read in the online news website and the social media (which some people consider the absolute harbinger of truth). The only difference is that for those people, they already have their built-in biases for and against particular vaccines based on their political leanings, while we try to, as much as possible, validate what we read with other news sources.

Take the case of the China’s Sinovac vaccine, the CoronaVac. When CoronaVac was hitting the headlines of online news sites late last year for registering a remarkable 90+ percent efficacy in clinical trials in Turkey, Indonesia and other countries, no one among the pseudo-vaccine experts for the Yellows and the Left expressed approval over the vaccine’s apparent success. But when Brazil, in January this year, released the clinical trial result of CoronaVac showing an efficacy rating of a little over 50 percent, these people suddenly came out in the open, denouncing our government’s decision to procure some shots from the said vaccine manufacturer.

Never did they make an effort to understand fully why the clinical trial in Brazil produced a much different result from those of Turkey, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates. Local publications including the Inquirer came out with articles stating that Brazil’s clinical trial produced a lower efficacy rating because the test in Brazil was largely focused on medical practitioners highly exposed to the virus.

In the research data released by Sinovac last week,  it stated that Turkey’s trial results showed the two-dose vaccine to be 91.25 percent effective in preventing COVID, while in Brazil, the vaccine trial results showed a 50.65-percent overall efficacy, while it is 83.7 percent effective in mild cases that needed treatment and 100-percent effective in preventing severe or death cases.

- Advertisement -

The Chinese Embassy here in Manila also bared that Sinovac and Sinopharm’s Covid-19 vaccines are at the very advanced stage of the world Health Organization's reviews for emergency use listing, and WHO inspectors who arrived in China in mid-January will start inspections next week, the WHO said on Friday. 

According to the Chinese Embassy, the WHO inspectors had a virtual meeting with Sinovac during their quarantine in China and is now reviewing various materials, adding that in the next few days, WHO inspectors will make field inspections at the Beijing company, visiting production lines, facilities, management and personnel.

Also, Indonesia has approved Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine for use among the elderly, a letter from the food and drug agency shows, potentially changing the country’s strategy which has prioritized its working population first, the Embassy added.

Ironically, none of these landed on the social media accounts of those opposing the Chinese-manufactured vaccines where they are at their loudest. Not because they were less effective than the vaccines produced by other countries, but because they want to despise this administration, considered to be China-friendly.

They even accused the administration of trying to procure “the more expensive” Sinovac vaccine when in truth it is only priced at P600 per jab, or maybe even less. But they are surprisingly quiet in the alleged side effects of the other vaccines, which could even be fatal.

But aren’t vaccines supposed to be free from any racial preference? Vaccines are supposedly manufactured to prevent everyone from getting infected with disease-causing viruses, including this dreaded coronavirus. 

Vaccines are not supposed to distinguish from one nationality to another.

In fact, University of the Philippines professor Clarita Carlos can’t help but chastise those who attached flags to the issue of vaccines.    

In her social media account, Carlos said that as China just announced the roll out for public use of Sinovac vaccines, they are now currently being deployed in Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia and Argentina, as according to reports.

“Sadly, our propensity to attach a FLAG to the vaccines has exacerbated vaccine hesitancy,” Carlos laments.

“As far as I am concerned, all endeavors to create vaccines are governed by the very strict and rigid requirements of science, following strict and rigid protocols of clinical trials. Thus, there is no Russian, British, American, Chinese or Filipino vaccine.  There are only scientists who are all working to produce the most safe, efficacious and effective  vaccine,” the UP political science professor stresses.

I could only agree.

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles