Vaccine expert: Getting COVID-19 jab most effective weapon amid pandemic

A health expert has assured the public on Wednesday that getting a vaccine, regardless of its brand, is the most effective weapon against COVID-19.

Dr. Lulu Bravo of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and Philippine General Hospital made the appeal as people in Manila and Parañaque cities came in droves to avail of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, with many of them lining up as early as 2 a.m.

Based on the evaluation of the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Pfizer-BioNTech has an efficacy rate of 95% on study population and 92% across all races.

“What matters most is the effectiveness and the impact that a vaccine can do to the country. Milyon-milyon na ang nabigyan ng Sinovac sa Indonesia, at ang ganda ng outcome nila. Bumaba na ang cases, talo na nga tayo (Millions have been inoculated with Sinovac in Indonesia, and the outcome was good as cases decreased, and their figures are even better than ours),” Bravo said during the Laging Handa public briefing.

“This is the real world impact which is much, much higher compared with efficacy based on clinical trials where there are 40,000 [or] 50,000 participants. Ito, milyon-milyon (But this one involves millions of people)," she added.

Based on the FDA's evaluation, Sinovac’s efficacy rate was 65% to 91% among 18 to 59 years old, and 51% among elderly and health workers.

Bravo, however, stressed that all COVID-19 vaccine brands issued with emergency use authorization by the FDA such as AstraZeneca, Sinovac, Pfizer-BioNTech, Janssen, Moderna, Covaxin and Sputnik V are all safe and effective.

“As long as it went through research and we have hundreds of vaccine experts… kapag sinabi nilang okay, okay ‘yan. Huwag na kayo magpatumpik-tumpik (when they say a vaccine is okay, that is okay, no more hesitation),” she pointed out.

“We need to get vaccinated to meet the 70% target for herd immunity so we can go back to our normal lives. And we wish to have that by Christmas so we can go back to hugging each other,” she added. —MDM/KG, GMA News