SINGAPORE, Nov 28 (The Straits Times/ANN): With not one, not two, but three Covid-19 vaccines applying for emergency use authorisation across the globe, and several others in clinical trials, including a home-grown candidate, Singapore can be sure it will not have to put all its eggs in one basket to keep its people safe from the coronavirus. And it may also not have too long to wait.
Professor Ooi Eng Eong, deputy director of Duke-NUS Medical School's Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme, said: "We should use whatever vaccines with well-proven safety and efficacy as soon as possible to protect our population and return to our normal lives as much as, and as soon as possible."
In the past few weeks, news of promising interim late-trial results for three vaccine candidates has come thick and fast, helping to inject some joy into a world weighed down by a pandemic that has infected more than 61 million people and claimed over 1.4 million lives.
The Covid-19 situation in the country is also well under control. There were only six new coronavirus cases on Saturday (Nov 28), including a locally transmitted community case.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) said the local case was detected from its surveillance testing of stallholders in and near Tekka Centre on Thursday.
There were five imported cases, who were placed on stay-home notice on arrival in Singapore. More details of the cases will be announced in the evening.
Saturday's new cases take Singapore's total to 58,205.
This is the second local case in 19 days. Singapore had gone 16 days without a locally transmitted case until Thursday, when a 32-year-old Singaporean marine service engineer, who had dinner with 12 family members at Seoul Garden in Tampines Mall, was announced to have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Experts have told The Straits Times that it is unlikely that one case will lead to a major surge in cases here, as his close contacts have been quarantined, although there could be a small cluster of second generation cases.
It is believed that his quick detection and the subsequent contact tracing would halt the transmission chain.
Meanwhile, Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, were first off the blocks, announcing on Nov 9 that their vaccine candidate was more than 90 per cent effective in preventing people from getting the disease. This went up to 95 per cent when it released the first set of complete results on Nov 18.
Fast on its heels was US pharmaceutical firm Moderna, which said on Nov 16 that its vaccine candidate had demonstrated an efficacy rate of 94.5 per cent.
AstraZeneca was third in the vaccine race to announce it had a potential winner on its hands.
Last Monday, it said that the vaccine candidate it is developing with Oxford University had an efficacy rate of up to 90 per cent if a lower first dose was used with a regular second dose. Otherwise, with two standard doses, the efficacy rate was 62 per cent.
"To achieve 90 per cent to 95 per cent vaccine efficacy in outbreak conditions with a novel pathogen within a year of discovery is as remarkable as two golfers playing on a completely unfamiliar green, who have just hit holes-in-one," said Associate Professor Lim Poh Lian, the head of the Travellers' Health and Vaccination Clinic at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Health Minister Gan Kim Yong has said Singapore will work towards "securing a portfolio" of Covid-19 vaccines to cater to different segments of the population.
Asked which vaccine he was most excited about, Prof Ooi, principal investigator for Lunar- CoV19, the vaccine candidate being developed by Arcturus Therapeutics in the United States and the Duke-NUS Medical School here, replied: "I will take the first available licensed vaccine."
News that the three vaccine candidates can be 90 per cent to 95 per cent effective gave cause for optimism that the world could turn the corner in the virus battle. However, while the vaccines do prevent most people from falling ill with Covid-19, there is no data to show they stop a person from being infected, then passing the infection on even without getting sick; or how long they last.
"Asymptomatic Sars-CoV-2 infection in vaccinated individuals could still allow the virus to spread in our community and cause Covid-19 in unvaccinated individuals," said Prof Ooi.
Experts have stressed that no vaccine is perfect. So, while a good vaccine boosts a person's immune system to give them a headstart in fighting a disease, it may not confer 100 per cent protection, nor will it work on everyone. It can also wear off in time. People who received a shot against mumps or whooping cough, for instance, may still pass it on.
Even so, when enough people are vaccinated, and the virus cannot travel as easily from person to person – the entire community is less likely to get the disease. Prof Ooi said it would take time to determine if any vaccine can prevent the Sars-CoV-2 infection.
"We should thus sustain a pipeline of new vaccines so that we can find those that are most effective at sustaining protection against Covid-19 and possibly even eliminating Sars-CoV-2 from the human population," he said.
At a webinar hosted by The Straits Times on Wednesday, Singapore's chief health scientist, Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, had said that Covid-19 vaccines on the cusp of being approved would completely shift the battle against the pandemic but they cannot eliminate all other measures. - The Straits Times/Asian News Network
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