The Food and Drug Administrator (FDA) assured the public that the COVID-19 vaccines are still effective despite reports of low efficacy rate against COVID-19 variants.
FDA Director-General Eric Domingo cited on Monday (June 21) some studies that show the decrease in the efficacy rate of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines when used on the Delta variant that was first detected in India. Compared to the Alpha variant, the Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy has decreased from 93% to 88%, while the AstraZeneca vaccine decreased from 66% to 60%.
“There is a decreasing efficacy as we get more mutations pero ‘di naman po completely nawawala ang bisa ng bakuna. It’s still a very useful vaccine,” he assured.
Domingo added that the studies on the efficacy rate of the Janssen, Moderna, Sinovac, Sinopharm, and Sputnik V vaccines against the Delta variant are currently ongoing.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Tuesday (June 22) that the Philippines will receive at least 3.8-M COVID-19 vaccine doses this week that includes AstraZeneca, Sinovac, and Moderna.
In addition to this, 7.5-M doses of Pfizer vaccines are expected to arrive in the third quarter and 32.5-M more doses of the same brand in the fourth quarter.
Report from Mark Fetalco/NGS-rir
