Epidemiologist Unair: Vaccines Are Only Given To Healthy People

Vaccination for COVID-19 (DOK. ANTARA)

SURABAYA - Epidemiologist from Airlangga University Surabaya, Dr. dr. M Atoillah Isfandiari, MKes emphasized that vaccines can only be given to healthy people. The reason is that vaccines are different from drugs.

"The medicine is to treat the sick, while the vaccine is to prevent the healthy from getting sick," said the Deputy Dean II of the Faculty of Public Health (FKM) Unair, in Surabaya quoted by Antara, Thursday, January 14.

Therefore, vaccines like Sinovac must be given to people who are still healthy. Sick people are not targeted for vaccines because they already have natural antibodies that may degrade over time.

Regarding the use of the Sinovac Vaccine for COVID-19, the man who is familiarly called Ato said that priority is needed for health workers.

"What must be given first is of course the ones who can first help sick people, in this case are medical personnel. Because the analogy is that medical personnel are safe from infection, then they can be more optimal in helping others, including helping to gain immunity," he said.

According to him, the Sinovac vaccine has several advantages, such as using an old platform that is well known to vaccine manufacturers, namely inactivated viruses or viruses that are killed.

"The side effect of the vaccine was recorded at less than 1 percent. This means that it has very high safety, even though it has a vaccine efficacy of 65.3 percent. The vaccine's efficacy is arguably much lower than other vaccines," said Dr. Atoillah.

Ato said Sinovac is also relatively easy to store and does not require sophisticated cold chains, such as the Pfizer vaccine which requires minus 70 degrees of storage.

"The vaccine from the Chinese company is still possible if stored in an ordinary refrigerator," he said.

While the matter of clinical post-trial side effects is carried out, Ato said, the ideal time needed is six months of monitoring to determine the side effects.

"So, the phase 3 clinical trial has been completed, so that the data recorded during the implementation of the clinical trial results can be obtained and analyzed. The clinical trial has been completed, only the post-test monitoring version is what we wait with the consideration that during the trial. from the 1st to 3rd reports related to safety and efficacy have been obtained, "he said.