Sinovac study should put an end to vaccine skepticism
ALARGE-SCALE study on the effectiveness of the Sinovac vaccine recently carried out in Indonesia has yielded excellent results, according to reports earlier this week. In the interest of firmly putting an end to lingering skepticism and hesitancy about the vaccine, opinions that are entirely political in nature and in no way based on medical science, we feel it is important to explain the significance of the study’s findings.
To be accurate, the vaccine commonly referred to as “Sinovac” here is actually called “CoronaVac.” It is a product of Sinovac Biotech Ltd., a Beijing-based company — not a Chinese governmentowned corporation — that specializes in vaccine development, including influenza, hepatitis and mumps, besides its vaccine against the novel coronavirus.
The research study reported this week was carried out in Jakarta from January to March and involved 128,290 health workers. The study found that the Sinovac vaccine protected 94 percent against symptomatic infection, 96 percent from hospitalization and 98 percent from death as soon as seven days following the second dose of the two-shot vaccine. These results confirmed, on a much larger scale, the results of an earlier study of 25,374 vaccine recipients also carried out in Indonesia.
To put the results in perhaps simpler terms: among the highest-risk group, health care workers who are more likely than anyone else to be exposed to the coronavirus, inoculation with the Sinovac vaccine means that out of every 100 people, at least 98 are assured of survival even if they contract a severe infection. For the vast majority of the population that is not nearly as exposed to the risk of infection as health care workers, the results imply that with vaccination, the risk of serious infection or death is reduced to very near zero.
These results are far better than those of earlier clinical trials, and the fact that the study was carried out in “real world” conditions make the results even more significant. Researchers and health authorities have been clear in explaining the limitations of clinical trials. If they are large enough and are conducted properly, they can give useful results, but they are inevitably conducted under controlled conditions. As experts have said, the true test of a vaccine’s effectiveness is best conducted among a population under “normal” circumstances, going about their usual activities.
In order to have a large enough group of people to make any study results statistically reliable, researchers simply had to wait until enough people were vaccinated with the same vaccine to carry out their research. Indonesia has relied almost exclusively on the Sinovac vaccine and so, it has been the first country where such research has been possible.
Sinovac has also been the most-available vaccine here in the Philippines, but due to a variety of factors such as misinformation and a general, unjustified suspicion of products from China, many people have expressed hesitancy or outright refusal to receive the vaccine. The results of the Indonesian study clearly indicate that there is no reason to fear the Sinovac vaccine.
For that matter, there should be no reason to fear any vaccine. The current study concerns the Sinovac vaccine, but we are confident that any that are now available will yield similar results once the same research is conducted for those.
Although there are certainly improvements that could be made in the government’s vaccine distribution plan, even if it were working at peak efficiency, vaccine hesitancy would continue to be the most serious obstacle to its effectiveness. We will continue to do our part to encourage everyone to take the vaccine — any vaccine that is available — because that is the one sure path to bringing the pandemic under control. However, the government must redouble its efforts to reassure the public as well. The results from the Indonesia study should be explained in clear terms and publicized as widely as possible. The information will have a far greater positive impact if it comes from the government, a source that still enjoys the trust and confidence of the vast majority of Filipinos.
“Although there are certainly improvements that can be made in the government’s vaccine distribution plan, vaccine hesitancy will continue to be the most serious obstacle to its effectiveness.