Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 22) — As the Philippines records more cases of the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant, Food and Drug Administration chief Eric Domingo on Monday assured Filipinos can be protected against it through vaccination.
He said the vaccines offer protection despite slightly lower efficacy rates when used on patients carrying the Delta variant which was first discovered in India.
Domingo said Pfizer vaccines are 88% efficacious against the Delta strain as compared to the 93% efficacy rate against the Alpha variant first detected in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca has a 60% efficacy rate against the Delta variant, lower than the 66% when going against the Alpha mutation.
“There’s a decreasing efficacy as we get more mutations, but hindi naman po completely nawawala ang bisa ng bakuna. It’s still a useful vaccine,” he said during his taped meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte.
[Translation: There is a decreasing efficacy as we get more mutations, but its effect does not go away. The vaccines are still useful.]
He said studies are ongoing to find out Delta variant’s effect on the COVID-19 vaccines made by Sinovac, Gamaleya, Sinopharm, Janssen, and Moderna.
“Initial reports indicate that they are also useful, but of course we expect that it will be a little lower than the original efficacy doon po sa original na variant po ng ating bakuna [in the original variant]. So ibig pong sabihin, lahat naman po ng bakunang ito wala naman pong nawawalan completely ng bisa [All the vaccines do not lose their efficacy] even with the Delta variant,” the FDA director-general said.
The Philippines now has a total of 17 Delta variant cases after four returning overseas Filipinos tested for the mutation that is more infectious. It is four times more contagious than the original COVID-19 strain detected in Wuhan back in 2019, health officials said. Patients with the feared variant are also found to stay longer in the hospital due to more severe symptoms.
The regulatory chief urged the public to get vaccinated as soon as possible so they are protected against COVID-19 and its mutations.
Meanwhile, Dr. Edsel Salvana of the Department of Health-Technical Advisory Group persuaded Filipinos to complete their vaccination as one dose is “not very good at protecting against Delta.”
He said the current stringent quarantine protocols on inbound passengers and face shield mandate should be continued to fight the threat of the Delta variant.
“Mabagsik po talaga ito. If we thought Alpha was mabagsik, ‘yong UK variant, mas mabagsik po itong Indian variant, ‘yong Delta,” the doctor said.
[Translation: This is a fierce variant. If we though Alpha was scary, the Indian variant or Delta is worse.]
