Team watching response of Filipinos to vaccines

MANILA, Philippines — Seeking to build the country’s own databank on vaccine effectiveness, a team of specialists have been studying how COVID-19 vaccines are working in the Philippines even as they reiterated the efficacy of approved vaccines.

“The information we have here in the Philippines [about vaccines] is not yet complete enough, nor do we have large completed studies,” said Dr. Regina Berba, an infectious disease specialist and chair of Philippine General Hospital’s (PGH) infection control unit.

Berba reiterated that all COVID-19 vaccines approved in the country reduce the risk of severe infections, but there are a few instances when fully vaccinated individuals still get infected, a phenomenon called “breakthrough” infections.

While breakthrough cases that led to hospitalization and death are low, Berba said in a webinar on Friday that these were based on foreign studies, so around 14 Filipino specialists in several training hospitals started their own study three months ago.

The local specialists have been employing immunosurveillance and COVID-19 surveillance.

Immunosurveillance involves conducting antibody tests on vaccinated individuals and building a biobank for future tests while COVID-19 surveillance includes monitoring symptomatic COVID-19 cases and the transmission of asymptomatic infection.

At PGH, Berba said most adult COVID-19 admissions and critical patients were unvaccinated as of Aug. 26, or 199 out of the 280 admitted.

But hospital data also showed that no fully vaccinated COVID-19 patients were critically intubated.

Breakthrough infections

Their data also showed that from May to August, 71 percent of 130 out of 184 COVID-19 cases among the hospital’s healthcare workers were breakthrough infections.

Similarly, data from Lung Center of the Philippines showed a 6.3-percent breakthrough infection among the hospital’s healthcare personnel from June 1 to Aug. 22, or 65 cases among 1,029 vaccinated workers.

“COVID-19 vaccines are effective but many factors come into play and that make us more prone to breakthrough infections, including host factors like comorbidities and immune responses, situation factors like exposures and use of protection, and virus factors like the presence of variants of concern,” Berba said.

At the same time, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said in a statement on Saturday that health-care professionals should be mindful of public statements that might discourage people from getting inoculated.

Duque issued the statement after former National Task Force adviser Dr. Tony Leachon questioned at a Senate hearing why the bulk of the vaccine portfolio of the country were Chinese-made brands.

Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., the NTF chief implementer and vaccine czar, clarified that the government has already secured 40 million doses of Pfizer and 20 million doses of Moderna. Tranches of both are scheduled to arrive in the fourth quarter.

The country expects to receive 25 million vaccines in September, and around 114.5 million by the last three months of 2021.