Akash Samaroo
While people continue to ask the question about which COVID-19 vaccine is better, one expert says all approved vaccines have proven to do the same thing, which is to protect against severe illness or death.
Manufacturers like Pfizer and Moderna boast of a 95 per cent efficacy, which suggests to some that they are the best on the market.
However, Associate Professor of Biotechnology at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Nicole Ramlachan, said it is impossible to compare vaccines.
“You have to compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges. The problem with comparing them is that these manufacturing companies came out with the vaccines at different times. For example, the Moderna and the Pfizer came out against the original strain because that was what was around then, all the others that came out have been tested in areas that variants appear, so for example, AstraZeneca was tested in Brazil where there was a variant, so was Sinopharm,” Ramlachan told Guardian Media.
Ramlachan also explained that the ‘efficacy level’ is determined by the manufacturer themselves, after testing on selected groups and then that information is passed on to bodies like the World Health Organization.
“If they have 100 people in their study and 95 per cent of them were never infected after vaccination, that means it is 95 per cent effective.”
Ramlachan said it is time people understand that the vaccines’ main purpose is to prevent hospitalisation due to severe illness or in a worst-case scenario, death, due to COVID-19. And if people consider the effectiveness against that, then all of the WHO-approved vaccines are 100 per cent effective.
“All of those vaccines that we have that are WHO-approved and that came out since are all 100 per cent protective against disease and death and that is the measuring line that we go by.”
The UTT Associate Professor added that the good news is that vaccines like the AstraZeneca and Sinopharm have been proven to be effective against the new COVID-19 variants.
“So far, everything that is in circulation, the 4 or 5 major vaccines, all show to be fairly protective against the variants.”
However, she warned, as health officials have before, that it is important to receive the two doses to benefit from the efficacy levels of the vaccine.
Ramlachan is echoing the mantra that the best vaccine is the one available to you. She said those who are waiting for a so-called better brand of vaccine before they agree to be inoculated, are putting people at risk, particularly children.
“Nowhere in the world has a child under 12 been vaccinated, so they are not able to respond to the virus in the way people who are vaccinated can and we know the variants coming out can cause more severe disease in children. So when we achieve herd immunity, then we are creating a barrier around unvaccinated children and unvaccinated people.”