A professor of molecular biology and biotechnology on Monday (Aug. 16) said vaccination remains important amid the threat of emerging highly transmissible variants such as Delta and Lambda.
Dr. Cynthia Saloma, Philippine Genome Center (PGC) executive director, said in a Palace briefing that over 99% of deaths from breakthrough infections occurred in unvaccinated individuals.
“While as much as 75% of breakthrough cases detected with the Delta variant could happen, the symptoms were much milder,” Saloma said.
“And of course, there is data in the US and other countries [that] 99.5% of deaths are occurring in the unvaccinated. That’s why it’s really, really imperative that we get ourselves vaccinated when it’s our turn,” she added.
A breakthrough infection takes place when a vaccinated individual gets sick from an illness that is supposed to be prevented by the vaccine. An individual is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after getting his or her last dose.
Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) data showed that there are 115 COVID-19 breakthrough infection cases in the country as of Aug. 13. At least 88% of these are mild or asymptomatic, 11% were hospitalized, and 1% died.
This is 0.0013% of the 9.1 million fully vaccinated individuals during that time.
The Philippines is currently using vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Gamaleya, Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Sinovac.
In a Facebook post, infectious disease specialist Dr. Edsel Salvana said the issue on reduced efficacy of Sinovac’s CoronaVac against Lambda variant has not yet been peer reviewed.
“Real world data from Chile which has a lot of Lambda [cases] shows that CoronaVac/Sinovac prevents severe disease and death very well,” he said.
“All vaccines work to prevent severe disease and death against ALL the variants. Get vaccinated now and drop your risk of severe disease and dying by 90%,” he added. – Report from Sweeden Velado-Ramirez/AG-rir
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