By Chantalé Fletcher
CHIEF Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram describes a new study on the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine as having lifelong protection from Covid-19 as good news.
He was responding to a question from AZPNews.com at the ministry’s virtual presser on Wednesday.
Dr Parasram said, “Initially when vaccines were utilised and manufactured, people were saying we will get eight months to a one year in terms of immunity, the study seems to suggest that you will get lifelong immunity from AstraZeneca.”
A study from a United Kingdom published in the Nature Journal by scientists from Oxford, UK and Switzerland has claimed that the vaccine not just generates antibodies against the Sars-Cov-2 virus, but also created “training camps” in the body, to enable search-and-destroy T-cells to even kill new variants.
However, the CMO warned that it is still early and changes were dependent on the types of variants that may come along.
Dr Parasram said, “It’s a very good study to take note off and it supports the use of AstraZeneca, which also decreases the risk of transmission of diseases.”
In addition, AstraZeneca was recognised as one of the few vaccines to do so, he said.
The CMO also said a study on Sinopharm from Sri Lanka stated that it gives good protection against the Delta Variant.
However, he emphasised that this study was very new and has not been peer reviewed.
Dr Parasram cautioned that although the findings were good news, it should be reviewed before information could be shared in its entirety
