Although The New Variant Of COVID-19 Affects Vaccine Efficacy, Task Force Confirms Two-Dose Vaccination Is Enough

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/BETWEEN

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Task Force, Wiku Adisasmito, acknowledged that a number of new variants of COVID-19 could affect or reduce the efficacy of the vaccine that is injected into a person.

"In fact, the existence of various variants can affect the transmissibility and effectiveness of the vaccine that has been given", said Wiku in a virtual press conference, Thursday, July 15.

However, Wiku emphasized that the Indonesian people do not need to vaccinate the third dose or booster vaccine. Because, stating that the presence of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine is still important, especially in minimizing the symptoms caused.

"In general, twice of vaccine dose is enough for the general population to form individual immunity. Because scientific studies show that the average antibody in the population can last for months, even years", he said.

In addition, Wiku cites the results of one of the cohort studies on the effect of cases of the new variant of COVID-19 with people who have been vaccinated. He said the vaccine could reduce the risk of the emergence of new variants of COVID-19.

"The occurrence of positive cases after being vaccinated has in fact also been studied by one cohort study. From 1.8 million genomes of the COVID-19 virus from 183 countries in the world, it is stated that patients who have been vaccinated and are positive have shown a decrease in mutations that occur", said Wiku.

Apart from the addition of a third dose vaccination booster policy for health workers using modern vaccines, Wiku said the government will continue to focus on accelerating vaccination to achieve community immunity by the end of 2021.