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 Some countries including Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have
already started giving a booster shot to those inoculated with
Chinese vaccines amid concerns that they may not be as effective
against new and more transmissible coronavirus variants.
But the challenges facing Southeast Asia are much bigger. Many
countries in the region rely heavily on Chinese vaccines due to
tight supplies of Western products, and have low vaccination rates
of less than 10%.
They are also battling a record-breaking surge in new cases and
deaths, led by the highly contagious Delta variant, while rising
infections among medical workers despite being fully immunised with
the Sinovac shots have stretched already thin healthcare systems.
"There's a lot of doctors and medical workers who have been
vaccinated twice but endured medium and severe symptoms, or even
died," Slamet Budiarto, deputy chief of the Indonesian Medical
Association, told parliament on Monday.
Indonesia has vaccinated millions of its healthcare workers with the
Sinovac shot and thousands of them are now testing positive for
COVID-19. [L3N2OJ0F8]
"It is the time for medical workers to get a third booster to
protect them from the impact of more vicious and worrying new
variants," said Melki Laka Lena, deputy chairman of the
parliamentary commission overseeing health.
Siti Nadia Tarmizi, an official from Indonesia's health ministry,
said it is waiting for recommendations from immunization advisory
group and Indonesia's Food and Drug Agency (BPOM) about the use of a
booster shot.
While some real world data showed the Sinovac vaccine is effective
against hospitalisation and severe COVID-19 cases, there is no
detailed data yet on its effectiveness against the Delta variant,
first identified in India.
Thailand, which expects to receive a donation of 1.5 million Pfizer-BioNtech
shots from the United States later this month, plans to use it in
inoculating its 700,000 medical workers, most of whom have already
received two shots of Sinovac.
Senior health official Udom Kachintorn said the plan was aimed at
increasing immunity, as the Delta variant increases case loads and
scores of medical workers who had been fully vaccinated with the
Sinovac became infected.
A leaked Thai health ministry document this week showed that the
government was concerned about such a move sending a wrong signal to
the public because it would be admitting that the Sinovac vaccine
was not effective.
"It will definitely have an impact on the trust in the vaccine,"
said Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist at Australia's Griffith
University.
"The vaccine isn't necessarily ineffective, but its efficacy slides
down after six months. That's my prediction," he said, recommending
authorities consider a booster shot as a solution and communicate
the problems with the public.
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 Thai authorities have defended
the vaccine's use and its plan to purchase more
Sinovac vaccines.
"Don't downgrade Sinovac even though we know
efficacy is lower. It reduces the number of
patients with critical condition, and
fatalities," Udom said.
Indonesian doctors also acknowledge that Sinovac
might not be the best vaccine on the market, but
say that for now that is all they have, and that
is better than nothing.
"Up to now because we cannot produce (a vaccine)
we have no (other) option," said Eka Julianta
Wahjoepramono, the dean of the medical school at
Pelita Harapan University.
"Sinovac is the only choice," said Eka, who was
fully vaccinated with the Sinovac but got a
severe case of COVID-19 last month.
Sinovac did not reply to a Reuters' request for
comment.
'TIMELY RAIN' OR STILL DOUBTFUL
Doubts about the effectiveness of Chinese
vaccines threaten to undermine China's so-called
"vaccine diplomacy," through which Beijing has
sought to increase its diplomatic influence
around the world. China has shipped hundreds of
millions of doses of locally developed COVID-19
shots overseas.
Singapore said this week people who received the
Sinovac shots are excluded from its count of
total vaccinations due to a lack of efficacy
data for the vaccine, especially against the
contagious Delta variant.
"We don't really have a medical or scientific
basis or have the data now to establish how
effective Sinovac is in terms of infection and
severe illnesses on Delta," health minister Ong
Ye Kung said.
China reiterated that its vaccines are safe and
effective.
"Chinese vaccines have earned a good reputation
in the international community with their safety
and efficacy widely recognised," foreign
ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday in
response to a question about whether other
countries have expressed concerns about Chinese
vaccines.
"To date over 100 countries have approved
Chinese vaccines... The first batch of vaccines
to arrive in many developing nations are from
China. They refer to the Chinese doses as
'timely rain'."
(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng and Panarat
Thepgumpanat in Bangkok; Additional reporting by
Karen Lema in Manila, Jonathan Spicer in
Istanbul, Stanley Widanto and Agustinus Beo Da
Costa in Jakarta, and Kate Lamb in Sydney,
Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore and Ryan Woo in
Beijing; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Kim Coghill)
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