
Medicine Cabinet
By Teodoro B. Padilla
The Department of Health (DoH) has renewed its call for the public to get vaccinated and get their booster shots to remain protected against COVID-19. It also “strongly recommends” adhering to layers of protection such as wearing of face masks, isolating when sick, and ensuring good air ventilation.
The fresh calls came amidst the announcement that a new Omicron strain had been detected in the country. The new EG.5 subvariant is a sublineage of Omicron XBB.1.9.2. The World Health Organization (WHO) earlier designated this new subvariant under the list of Omicron variants under monitoring.
The WHO explained that all viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, change over time. Some of these changes may affect the properties of the virus. These variations include “how a virus easily spreads, the associated disease severity, or the performance of vaccines, therapeutic medicines, diagnostic tools, or other public health and social measures.” Aside from variants under monitoring, other classifications are the so-called variants of interest and variants of concern.
The WHO added that a virus under monitoring designation means that a specific subvariant, as in the case of EG.5, has genetic changes that are suspected to affect virus characteristics and early signals of growth advantage relative to other circulating variants. An enhanced monitoring and reassessment are required since the evidence of its epidemiological impact remains to be seen. The virus under monitoring listing will be crucial as subvariants under this classification can have a growth advantage in a region or even globally.
In the past two weeks, the EG.5 was responsible for more than 17% of new COVID-19 cases in the United States. In the Philippines, the XBB variants are still the dominant circulating strains. Metro Manila logged the highest number of new COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks with 107, followed by Calabarzon and Central Luzon.
It is true that the COVID-19 status was downgraded as a result of the pandemic being on a downward trend in the course of 12 months. Death rates have also continued to spiral down. Global health experts attributed this breakthrough to the “highly effective vaccines developed in record time to fight the disease.”
Despite this, the WHO said COVID-19 is “still killing” especially for those belonging to the vulnerable population.
With the high risks still associated with COVID-19, the DoH is ramping up efforts to vaccinate specific priority groups using bivalent shots. It said the bivalent vaccine is intended to be a booster dose for healthcare workers, senior citizens and those with comorbidities. It is important for people under these priority health groups to speak with a healthcare professional to discuss the benefits or any potential side effects when getting the shots. The DoH through the Office of Secretary Teodoro Herbosa and the Public Health Services Team is also organizing an information campaign that seeks to communicate to the public the value of booster vaccination for intended priority groups.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said bivalent COVID-19 vaccines include a component that corresponds to the original virus strain to provide broad protection against COVID-19 and a component that corresponds to the Omicron variant to give better protection against it. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are two vaccine manufacturers that have developed the bivalent or also called updated vaccines.
The Yale Medicine explained that bivalent vaccines use mRNA technology, which is a way of sending instructions to host cells in the body to make copies of a spike protein. The cells then recognize that this protein is foreign, and the immune system reacts by activating immune cells, thereby producing antibodies. This will then prompt the body to recognize and attack the real SARS COV-2 spike protein if one is infected by the virus.
From monovalent vaccines to bivalent booster shots, vaccination continues to work in three ways. One, COVID-19 vaccines work by lowering the chance of getting the virus. Two, they can also protect a person from getting seriously ill and can lower the chance of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. Finally, they make a vaccinated person less likely to pass the disease to others.
Vaccines for other diseases also work in the same three ways. Vaccination remains to be one of the most cost-effective and efficient ways to prevent diseases. Apart from COVID-19 booster vaccination, life-course immunization is an equally important aspect of public health to ensure that people from all ages would not have to die or suffer from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Teodoro B. Padilla is the executive director of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP). PHAP represents the biopharmaceutical medicines and vaccines industry in the country. Its members are in the forefront of research and development efforts for COVID-19 and other diseases that affect Filipinos.