The Sinovac Vaccine Has Not Been Proven To Be Against The New Corona B117 Variant

TEBET, AYOBOGOR.COM – Head of the Covid-19 Task Force for the Executive Board of the Indonesian Doctors Association (PB IDI), Zubairi Djoerban, said the CoronaVac vaccine made by Sinovac Biotech, China, currently used in Indonesia, has not been proven to be able to fight the Covid-19 B117 mutation from England.

Zubairi said that so far there had only been reports and concrete evidence of the Pfizer vaccine being able to fight B117 in the UK, while Sinovac had no reports that it was effective against the B1117 mutation.

“In the UK, the vaccine is proven to be effective against this variant. They are using Pfizer. How is Indonesia? There is no evidence that Sinovac can prevent B.1.1.7. We’ll wait for the scientific evidence,” said Zubairi via his twitter as quoted by Suara.com, Thursday (4 / 3/2021).

He gave an example, although the B1117 mutation is said to be more quickly transmitted to many people, the problem can still be overcome with the Pfizer vaccine in the UK.

“Look at England. The last few months the transmission has been 70 percent faster. But, when many people have been vaccinated, the number of cases there has decreased significantly. It can be checked,” he explained.

The pioneer of handling HIV and AIDS in Indonesia emphasized that this was expressed not to frighten the public, but so that people could be more vigilant by always disciplining 3M’s health protocols (wearing masks, maintaining distance, washing hands).

“Don’t panic. I am sure that our public awareness of the health program is getting higher. I am optimistic and do not mean to spread fear. I convey this so that we are alert. I do not mean to cause fear,” he concluded.

It is known that two cases of the B117 virus strain from England had entered Indonesia since the end of January by two Indonesian migrant workers from Karawang, West Java who had just returned from Saudi Arabia with the initials M (40) January 28 and A (45) January 31, 2021.

Both landed at Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta, then underwent a PCR swab test and were found to be positive for Covid-19, they immediately undertook a 10-day quarantine obligation at Wisma Atlet Pademangan, North Jakarta.

Their swab samples were brought in by the Ministry of Health for whole genome sequencing, and it turned out that their samples contained the UK mutation B117.

After being declared negative for Covid-19 and recovering, they were just returned by the Covid-19 Task Force to Karawang.

Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono has just officially announced that the B117 strain has entered Indonesia on March 2, 2021, or exactly the one year anniversary of Covid-19.

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