As many raised doubts on the 50-percent efficacy rate of China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine, Dr. Lulu Bravo, executive director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination, said it is still “good enough to have that kind of protection.”
During a Senate hearing on Friday, Bravo told senators the 50-percent vaccine efficacy rate on vaccines was set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“The 50 percent (efficacy rate) was actually set by WHO long before, in the beginning of the pandemic. They even said that an efficacy of 50 to 70 percent would be already acceptable. These efficacy rates are actually needed to be put in place when you have a severe pandemic, when the incidence are so high, the 50 percent efficacy would be good enough to have that kind of protection,” Bravo said.
Bravo, who has 35-years’ experience on clinical trials and 45-years’ on infectious diseases, added, ” No protection is worse than a partial protection.”
“So , I guess that (50 percent) would be a good efficacy rate should you be able to get a vaccine,” she said.
“As I said, many vaccine experts are available in the Philippine and not one opinion my be enough because we do need to see the incidence. At any time, it may differ from a very high incidence where you would rather have a high efficacy. It really depends the varoius factors. It’s just safety and efficacy but the incidence of Covid in the place that will matter most,” she added.
Efficacy has a range, she noted. “In fact, it’s not just one because for example in Pfizer’s 94 percent efficacy. It means that infection/illness is prevented 94 or even 100 percent.”
“But still we do not know in how much transibility/efficacy is there because in the clinical trial there are various ways and means to actually see what is the transmission. Is it prevented by the vaccine or are you just preventing the symptoms…Is it preventing all kinds of infection or is it just preventing the severe infection, preventing the hospitalization,” she explained, adding that this can be seen once a clinical trial is done.
When asked her opinion about Filipinos’ dwindling confidence on vaccines, Bravo said: “Vaccines have been here for 222 years. “This is something that we have been working on the very beginning with the Philippine Foundation of Vaccination. We really have to explain and educate our masses.”
Bravo, who was asked again by Sotto if she were to choose between vaccine and a medicine, she replied, “Since time immemorial…there is an old adage that says ‘Prevention is better than cure’.”
For vaccines, she stressed, it is an investment in health.
“We have always taught our medical students and everybody else that a superior doctor prevents the disease, an inferior doctor treats the disease. And this is held up by health economics,” she said.
“We have so many health economic teachers but they will compute the cost of the disease over the cost of vaccination. And this is what our experts need to put into equation, when experts starts to recommend the vaccines that will be used,” she added.
She also appealed to the people to “trust” scientists and experts.
“We are not lacking vaccine experts in the Philippines. In fact, Philippines was actually respected in the realm of clinical trials long before,” she said.
She also said scientists in the Philippines were chosen by companies in other countries in Asia Pacific to do clinical trial research because of the “quality performance that our scientists are doing.”
Image credits: Simeon Celi Jr./Malacañang Presidential Photographers Division via AP