A nurse is preparing a Russian “Sputnik-V” vaccine against coronavirus infection (COVID-19) for inclusion at a clinic in Tver, Russia, October 12, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]
As a doctor with 1.27 million followers on social media, my followers often ask me questions. In the last few weeks, “Is the COVID-19 vaccine safe?” has been a frequently asked question.
Followed by, “Will the vaccine effectively protect against the novel coronavirus?”
Maybe it’s time to share some basic facts about vaccines. First, a vaccine is classified as a type of medicine, and like all similar products, safety is the top priority in development and production.
When a pharmaceutical campaign begins to test a new vaccine, it must first test on animals, then, if the results are worthy of progress, clinical trials will be performed on human volunteers in Phase I tests, on more human volunteers in Phase II, after which the tests are repeated in Phase III.
At these levels, safety is paramount and any vaccine applicant who has failed the safety requirement at any stage will fail. In particular, in Phase I clinical trials, safety studies have been conducted from all angles and any vaccine candidate who is not performing well will not proceed to the next step.
According to the official press releases, all five COVID-19 vaccines developed by Chinese enterprises have performed well in their Phase III clinical trials, and those developed by US and German companies are performed well in their tests. The safety of all these vaccines can be guaranteed.
Some vaccine opponents list examples of children who have suffered from illnesses, even disabilities, after receiving vaccinations. These examples are true, but they, intentionally or not, err on the concept of safety.
Vaccines are usually foreign to the human body, and, like all medicines, there are a few people who are allergic to them. That’s what we call the “devil’s ballot” and it has nothing to do with the safety of vaccines. The allergy level of most vaccines is less than one in a million, which is not higher than that for all medicines on average. Making a case of allergy sufferers is deceiving.
Vaccines are the most effective weapon against infectious diseases, especially those caused by viruses. For bacterial infections, we have antibiotics. But for most viruses, there is no very effective medicine and we have to rely heavily on the human immune system to fight them. Vaccines are what we use to stimulate the human immune system.
－TAN QINDONG, BEIJING-BASED DOCTOR