UCR (Rodrigo Facio Headquarters). Photo/Anel Kenjekeeva
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(CRHoy.com).-In December 2020 and January 2021, the country began with the vaccination campaign against COVID-19, and since then, the vaccinating teams of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) have placed 10,909,597 doses of this biological.
A study called ‘News 2021: second national survey on COVID-19′ of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), concluded that the majority of the population of the country does not believe in the myths surrounding this vaccine.
As reported in the investigation, one of the most popular beliefs is that substances that harm health have been added to the formula of this vaccine. 22.3% of the people surveyed said they agree or strongly agree that this is real.
They were followed 19.8% who affirm that the same vaccine produces the disease, and then there is support for lesser-known myths, such as that causes infertility with 6.3%, which includes microchips that control the mind with 4.1%, that cause autism with 3.5%, and that cause cancer with 3.3% support.
“As part of the study, a scale of beliefs about vaccine myths was developed, and as a result an average of 2.6 was obtained, within a range of zero to ten, of people who take them as true. On the same scale, it was exposed that 18.5% of people do not believe in myths, 65.2% say they have a low level of beliefs, 13.6% say they have a medium level and 2.7% have a high belief in myths, “explained the UCR .
For the deputy for San José, Pilar Cisneros, of the Social Democratic Progress Party (PPSD), the vaccines against COVID-19 that are placed in the country are experimental. This was stated the previous week in one of his participations in the legislative plenary.
“(…) to open a serious discussion about the use of the mask and the advisability of maintaining the obligation of an experimental vaccine against COVID-19″affirmed the legislator in defense of the decrees signed by the government of the Republic.
Vaccination against Covid-19. (Photo: CRH Archive/ Image for illustrative purposes)
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previous platform
Dr. María Luisa Ávila, specialist in infectology at the CCSS, ruled out that these vaccines are experimental and when in doubt about the speed of its creation, he explained that the previous platform by which they were developed is more than 50 years old.
“The research process takes between 50 and 60 years, the process of the specific creation of the vaccine was done in less time, but precisely because there was already a platform to do it, It is not something that came about overnight. Already known vaccine platforms that became specific for that virus were used.
The advantage is that now these are what is known as reverse vaccinology, so we can study the genome of the virus, a computer system tells us the part that generates the most response to our immune system is thisthen we can take that part and create the vaccine, that’s why it is created relatively quickly “said.
Ávila also highlighted that the Pfizer vaccine -which is applied in the country-, it is the one that has passed controlled clinical trials and that meets the requirements.
Other diseases
Regarding the doubts as to why it has not been possible to create a vaccine against other diseases that have been studied for more years, the doctor added that they are viruses that change a lot.
“People have to understand that not all viruses are the same. Messenger RNA technology has been used for rabies vaccines that have already been applied in some countries, and this is a technique that has been tried to find a vaccine against HIV/AIDS, only they are very different viruses.
So they are platforms that allow us to develop vaccines against certain diseases and that fortunately we had them and that allowed us to have the vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in a relatively short time “he added.
Ávila concluded that biologicals against COVID-19 they are safe and effective.
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