Experts vouch for vaccine safety profile

MANILA, Philippines — The COVID-19 inoculation has not resulted in serious side effects, experts from the Department of Science and Technology-Vaccine Expert Panel (DOST-VEP) and National Adverse Events Following Immunization Committee (NAEFIC) confirmed yesterday.

In a town hall session organized by the Department of Health, VEP chief Nina Gloriani said they have evaluated the performances of the vaccines and the adverse events are mostly “mild to moderate.”

“If there were serious adverse events, we investigated and it was not established that it was because of the vaccines. There was no causality. The adverse events were due to other conditions of the patients,” Gloriani said.

She said the safety profile of all vaccines is “good” and there is no evidence showing the jabs are directly related to the death of vaccinees.

This was corroborated by NAEFIC chief Lulu Bravo, who said the committee has been “actively investigating” reported side effects, including deaths of vaccinees.

Bravo said there was no evidence showing the deaths were due to COVID jabs received by the patients.

“Until now, we have not seen any adverse events of the vaccines and there is no clear evidence showing the deaths are related to the vaccines,” she said.

Bravo said based on their investigation and autopsy reports, the deaths were caused by heart attacks, severe asthma that has been neglected, stroke and delayed hospitalization.

Data from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that as of May 9, there were 91 “fatal events” reported, but most occurred in people with multiple existing comorbidities.

“There were cases of confirmed COVID infections leading to severe cases with fatal outcome,” data showed.

Serious adverse events pertain to reactions that lead to in-patient hospitalization/prolonged existing hospitalization, significant disability or incapacity, life-threatening (such as anaphylaxis) and death, birth defect or congenital malformations and other considered to be medically important events.

Other events reported are increased blood pressure, headaches, pain in vaccination site, fever, rash, vaccination-related malaise, itchiness, nausea and cough.

From the goal of having herd immunity against COVID, the country is now aiming to achieve “population protection” against the virus, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday.

At a public briefing, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said the country is shifting its target to “population protection” through mass immunization.

Cabotaje said the goal now is to protect the population against COVID by preventing or minimizing deaths and hospitalization.

“The bigger the population that is vaccinated, we have population protection so the spread of the illness can be prevented,” she said.

And should there be transmission of the virus among individuals, she said this would result in “very milld” illness.

Initially, the goal of the government is to achieve herd immunity, a situation where even unvaccinated individuals are protected.

This will be achieved by vaccinating 70 percent of the population by the end of 2021 or early next year.

Cabotaje said various factors come into play before “herd immunity” could be achieved. These include the presence of COVID variants and stability of vaccine supply.

“Our target now is based on global supply. We all know that we have some problems in the market because of the surging cases in India,” she said, adding the initial goal is to vaccinate 50 to 60 percent of people in the National Capital Region Plus.

“It will be population protection in geographic setting… But if the supply will be good and the global market will improve and we get more supply, we will be able to give more and reach our initial target of 70 million by end of this year,” Cabotaje said.