Vaccines: Some queries

Cassandra (“Cheers for Covid-19 vaccine; local answer to this and a very busy Minister”, 11 December) believes sensible, cautious thinkers cannot really trust “the Russians or the Chinese’. Instead, she “places her implicit trust and pins her hopes” on the so-called “Oxford vaccine”, which she claims to be “now in its last stage of being tested to obtain more than 95 % potency, sans any risks.”

She goes on to praise the British government for purchasing the Pfizer/BioNTech/Fosun vaccine.

On 8 December, the full trial results for the “Oxford vaccine” – more correctly the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine – saw publication. According to the figures, the vaccine was effective in 70% of cases, not 95%. Depending on dosage, efficacy of 62%-90% could be expected.

The discovery of the higher level of effectiveness took place by mistake: a batch of patients received the wrong dose. This raises the possibility of error in administering the vaccine in the field. The problem is that the Oxford vaccine has severe side effects – pain at the injection site, headache, fever, chills, muscle ache, and malaise, in more than 60% of participants.

Also on 9 December, Britain’s Daily Telegraph (not the most radical of newspapers) reported that “UK regulators have issued a warning that people who have a history of ‘significant’ allergic reactions should not currently receive the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, after two NHS staff members who had the jab suffered allergic reactions.”

Quite apart from the possibility of life-threatening allergic reactions, the Pfizer/BioNTech/Fosun vaccines have been reported as having side effects including pain at the injection site, headache, fever, chills, muscle and joint ache, and fatigue.

Pfizer has suffered in the past, from the blowback from pleading guilty in 2009 to a charge of marketing illegally the arthritis drug Bextra, for uses unapproved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which it agreed to settle by paying US$ 2.3 billion.

Cassandra doesn’t appear to be aware that Fosun, the Chinese partner of Pfizer and BioNTech in developing this vaccine, owns shares in BioNTech, and is itself owned by the same (Chinese) company which owns Sinopharm, the partner in developing a vaccine with the Beijing Institute of Biological Products and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products.

Meanwhile, the UAE Ministry of Health reported on 9 December that the Beijing-Wuhan-Sinopharm Covid vaccine had proved 86% efficacious in tests carried out in that country. Furthermore, the vaccine had no serious reported side effects, only pain at the injection site and fever, both mild and self-limiting, in tests carried out in China, the UAE and Bahrain. The UAE has granted full authorisation for use of the vaccine.

These are not the only vaccines being developed – a wide variety of countries, including our neighbour, India, have programmes going. Even little Cuba (an unacknowledged biotech mini-superpower) has developed four vaccines, the first of which is projected for approval, after phase 3 trials, next February.

However, of all the vaccines which have entered the lists so far, the Beijing-Wuhan-Sinopharm Covid vaccine appears to have the best combination of efficacy and safety.

One can only applaud Cassandra’s caution regarding the Russian and Chinese vaccines. Vaccines need to be tested to the fullest, as inability to shield the person vaccinated, as well as the side effects, could cause death. However, when she does not express the same circumspection regarding British and American vaccines, even though their drawbacks have been published, one begins seriously to doubt her judgement.

SAVITHRI GURUGE