Health workers who got COVID-19 after 1st jab to miss 2nd dose

A number of health workers at the San Lazaro Hospital and East Avenue Medical Center earlier inoculated against COVID-19 will be unable to take a second dose after they got infected with the disease despite getting a first dose.

Dr. Ferdinand de Guzman, spokesperson of the San Lazaro Hospital, said 39 of the 178 health workers vaccinated with Sinovac vaccine at their facility on March 3 still ended up catching the virus.

"Some of those who received the first dose, they got overconfident and complacent because they thought all the while, since they got the first dose, they are already protected. And they were not careful," he said.

Their colleagues will be getting their second dose on March 31.

The 39 who got infected, meanwhile, can still get the second dose once they recover from the disease. The hospital said they can get the second jab as late as 42 days after the first dose.

This despite the emergency use authorization given to Sinovac indicating that the second dose should be given a month after the first.

Those who got AstraZeneca but still contracted the disease could take a second vaccine up until the third month after the first.

Experts say COVID-19 vaccines take full effect two weeks after the second jab, but that does not prevent the patient from catching COVID-19 or from being infectious.

The vaccines only protect patients from experiencing severe symptoms of the disease.

At the East Avenue Medical Center, 10 health workers will not be given a second dose after also getting infected with COVID-19.

New guidelines from the Department of Health provide that these health workers will have take two more doses of the vaccine after 90 days. -MDM, GMA News