Terawan Claims Nusantara Vaccine Easily Overcome New Variant Of COVID-19
JAKARTA - The former health minister, Dr. Terawan Agus Putranto, and his research team revealed the results of the phase 2 clinical trial of the Nusantara Vaccine during a hearing with Commission VII DPR RI, Wednesday, June 16.
Having drawn controversy, Dr. Terawan appeared by claiming that the Nusantara vaccine he developed with dendritic cell technology could be a solution to overcome the various new variants of the Coronavirus that have emerged recently. Including, the Delta variant of the malignant virus which is more rapidly transmitted.
"Regarding the variant, I answered very easily, it only took eight days, I changed the antigen. Because the antigen is recombinant S spike, we just have to see which mutation it has, just combine it," said Terawan.
"We just need to add UK, India, or South African mutation," he continued.
As for the results of phase 2 clinical trial of the Nusantara vaccine, one of the researchers of the Nusantara vaccine, Lt. Col. Jonny, revealed that there were a number of unwanted events (KTD) that appeared during clinical trials. However, it is claimed that there are no effects that are categorized as serious, generally only mild effects.
"The result is that all adverse events are of mild degree. There are 24 subjects who complain of grade 1 local reactions," explained Lt. Col. Jonny.
Soreness: 17 people Bruises: 3 people Redness: 3 people Itching: 1 person
The clinical trial of the Nusantara vaccine did not receive the approval of BPOM because it was considered to have hit a number of scientific standards and was not effective for pandemic situations because it was individual.
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More ferocious
The head of the COVID-19 Task Force for the Indonesian Doctors Association (PB IDI), Zubairi Djoerban, said that the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus that caused the spike in cases in Kudus, Central Java, was indeed more easily transmitted.
Based on a British report, said Zubairi, the Delta variant can reduce the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine by up to 33 percent if it is injected only once.
"From British data, if you use any vaccine, if you have been injected once, the immunity against the Delta virus is 33 percent," said Zubairi in his statement, Tuesday, June 15. Meanwhile, the Pfizer vaccine can be immune to up to 80 percent of this Delta variant.
"If you are injected twice with AstraZeneca, you are only 60 percent immune, so if you use Pfizer it's only 80 percent," he said. The danger, said Zubairi, is that the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine will decrease against this Delta variant.
"So it's really decreased (effectiveness), it's really extraordinary that this Delta variant is malignant, easy to cause illness, and easy to cause hospitals to be full," he said. Therefore, Zubairi asked all Indonesian people to be vigilant so they don't suffer the same fate as India who experienced the COVID-19 tsunami.
"Now we have to be very, very vigilant because we are currently experiencing the same fate as in India at the beginning, which means it is very dangerous," he explained.
"India's increasing case was due to negligence, the term is complacency which means they start ignoring, also similar like in Taiwan, where people there feel it is impossible to get infected because they were locked down at the beginning, so they were ignoring and because of that the case is increasing," continued Zubairi.
Zubairi also asked the public not to feel confident that they could not get infected by COVID-19 even though they had been vaccinated.
"Well, we are the same. We know that people who have been vaccinated feel that (confident) cannot be infected, even though they have been vaccinated twice, please stick to health protocols because we can still potentially get infected," he said.