Is there one injection that is better than another? These are some of the questions we all ask ourselves most frequently in the face of the uncertainty and stress we have been under since this whole movie nightmare began.
The reality is that there are currently different vaccines that, although they do not make us totally immune to the virus, have greater or lesser effectiveness and a totally different way of working.
What are the most commonly used vaccines today?
In the case of Chile, there are three vaccines approved for administration, Pfizer/BioNTech, Sinovac and Oxford/AstraZeneca, according to information shared by La Tercera on its website.
In the same vein, others used worldwide are: Moderna, Sinopharm and Sputnik V.
What are they like?
01. Sinovac: based on the injection of the inactivated virus into the body. It is known that this vaccine has an efficacy of 91.25% in view of the results obtained in the last phases of the trials carried out in China, as confirmed by the web portal www.vacunas.org.
02. Pfizer: it involves introducing a messenger RNA into the body, which will be responsible for encoding the virus. This vaccine has an efficacy of 95% and was to be applied in two doses. However, it recently became known that a third booster will be required, as reported by Ugur Sahin, co-founder of the German company BioNTech and reported in the BBC News portal.
03. Astra-Zeneca: it is based on the genetic instructions of the virus to build the spike protein and unlike the other two vaccines, this one uses double helix DNA. Simply put: the cell envelops the virus in a bubble and draws it into itself. This vaccine is 79% effective.
It is known that most Latin American countries have already started the vaccination process, but there are others where the doses have not even reached their territory. Some of these countries are: Uruguay, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, this is what BBC News points out on its website.
To get vaccinated or not? It is one of the best methods to be more protected, that is to say, it does not mean that we will be totally immune to the virus but less compromised in case of infection. Even if you are vaccinated you should still maintain your protection with a mask, social distancing and constant hand washing.
Don’t let your guard down!