Indonesia, Thailand consider booster shots amid doubts over Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine

A woman receiving a dose of China's Sinovac vaccine in the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh on July 7. PHOTO: AFP

BANGKOK/JAKARTA (REUTERS) - Indonesia and Thailand are considering offering a booster shot to their medical workers immunised with Sinovac's Covid-19 vaccine, a move likely to reduce public trust in the Chinese product, which has been their main inoculation tool.

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 South-east 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 per cent.

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 them being fully immunised with the Sinovac shots have stretched already thin healthcare systems.

"There are a lot of doctors and medical workers who have been vaccinated twice but endured medium and severe symptoms, or even died," Mr Slamet Budiarto, deputy chief of the Indonesian Medical Association, told Parliament on Monday (July 5).

Indonesia has vaccinated millions of its healthcare workers with the Sinovac shot and thousands of them are now testing positive for Covid-19.

"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 Mr Melki Laka Lena, deputy chairman of the parliamentary commission overseeing health.

Ms Siti Nadia Tarmizi, an official from Indonesia's Health Ministry, said it is waiting for recommendations from an immunisation advisory group and Indonesia's Food and Drug Agency about the use of a booster shot.

While some real world data showed that 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, which was 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 them 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 caseloads and scores of medical workers who had been fully vaccinated with the Sinovac became infected.

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A leaked Thai Health Ministry document this week showed that the government was concerned about such a move sending the 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 Mr 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 that the authorities consider a booster shot as a solution and communicate the problems with the public.

The Thai authorities have defended the vaccine's use and their plan to purchase more of it.

"Don't downgrade Sinovac even though we know efficacy is lower. It reduces the number of patients with critical condition, and fatalities," Mr Udom said.

Indonesian doctors also acknowledged that Sinovac might not be the best vaccine on the market. But they said that for now, it 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 Professor Eka Julianta Wahjoepramono, dean of the medical school at Pelita Harapan University in Indonesia.

"Sinovac is the only choice," said Prof Eka, who was fully vaccinated with the Sinovac vaccine but got a severe case of Covid-19 last month.

Sinovac did not reply to a Reuters request for comment.

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 this week said 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," said the country's Health Minister Ong Ye Kung.

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 on 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'."

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