Vaccine distribution is on the rise in many countries, but the Covid-19 case has also risen again and there is a possibility of another increase in infections on the horizon, with the world on the run.
Experts say that the key to winning the race is not only whether the vaccine will play an important role in preventing serious illness from Covid-19, but also whether it can stop people from spreading the virus.
Co-Director of Sector for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and Dean, Dr. “The ideal vaccine will have two operational features: one prevents you from going to the hospital, going to the ICU and losing your life,” said Peter Hotez. National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. “But if the vaccine also prevents asymptomatic spread, then you can vaccinate against the possibility of an epidemic.”
Early signs are still promising. The effects of the vaccine on asymptomatic infections were largely unknown, but scientists say it will be crucial to ending the epidemic.
Asymptomatic cases involving people who have been infected with Covid-1 but have no symptoms, according to a recent study published in the Jamma Network Open Journal by researchers at the centers. For disease control and prevention. As such, if vaccines can block asymptomatic infections, they will significantly reduce overall infection, in the hope that the virus will soon be contained.
Dr Becky Smith, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University, said the vaccine could reduce a person’s viral load or protect the body from infection.
“Theoretically, by reducing your viral load, it should curb your ability to infect others.” “And even if it doesn’t completely stop the transmission, it should be significantly reduced.”
Focusing on vaccines and transmission leads to an important stage of the epidemic. Despite a drop in global cases over the past several weeks, some European countries are seeing a resurgence. U.S. Parts of are also reporting a fierce, one worrying development is that many states have recently eased public health restrictions.
Concerns about the Covid-19 variant, including strains that may be more contagious. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the country’s top infectious disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci told NBC News’ Richard Angel on Thursday that the U.S. needs to vaccinate as many people as possible to avoid further spread.
Part of that strategy has an impact on reducing transmission by vaccination.
Last week, new data from Israel, where about 60 percent of the country’s million inhabitants have received at least one dose of the vaccine, suggested that the Pfizer-Bioentech vaccine is 94 percent effective in preventing asymptomatic infections.
A separate study conducted by researchers at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom found that a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine could reduce asymptomatic infections by 75 percent. The results, which have yet to be peer-reviewed, come from an analysis of nearly 400 tests performed on vaccinated health care workers in Cambridge over a two-week period in January.
In Johnson’s and Johnson’s tests, the company’s vaccine was found to be 74 percent effective against asymptomatic infections. And according to a report released by the Food and Drug Administration in December 2020, preliminary data suggest that the Moderna vaccine may also protect against asymptomatic infections, but the company says more research is needed.
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown University Center for Global Health Sciences and Security, said the initial findings were “very promising.” But he added that there are still some big unanswered questions.
“From the real-world data we have so far, it seems that the vaccine has an effect on asymptomatic infections,” he said. “However, the real question is how comprehensive will this be?”
And because the vaccine is not 100 percent effective, it is possible that a given number of people could be infected with the virus. If that happens, and the vaccinated person is asymptomatic, it is not yet known if that person can spread Covid-19 to another, Ramsusen said.
In a new comment published Thursday in the George Science Journal, George Rmussen and Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist at George Mason University, detail why controlling “asymptomatic transmission” to end the epidemic. An asymptomatic transmission involves both people who have no symptoms and those who are pre-symptomatic but develop symptoms later.
“As more people are vaccinated, there will be a population-wide impact on transmission, but while most people are not currently vaccinated, we need to consider the issue of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission,” Rasmussen said.
Most scientists agree that there are two main ways to get out of an epidemic: involving reaching a herd known as herd immunity – when enough people have developed antibodies to a natural infection or vaccine, which is unlikely to erupt in the future. Others need to be blamed for the spread of the virus to such an extent that even uninhabited parts of the population have a lower risk of becoming infected.
If vaccines can protect against asymptomatic infections, they can help the latter, but the two strategies should not be mutually exclusive, Rasmussen said.
“It’s really a suite of intervention,” he said. “We need to think about ways to reduce overall infection, and we don’t just have to rely on vaccines.”
One way to eliminate the overall transition is to focus on public health remedies that practice social distance, avoid wearing masks, and associating with non-residents. If the virus can be contained sufficiently, aspects of life can return to normal, even if parts of the population are still inadvisable, Rasmussen said.
“We don’t have to come to the door of the mob’s immunity to ease the restrictions,” he said. “If we can get the virus to become so uncommon in the population, people will not be at risk whether they are vaccinated or not.”
