Administrating different types of Covid-19 vaccines provides high immunity against the virus and reduces the death rate, expert virologist Dr Yong Poovorawan said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
He said the method of administering two inactivated vaccine jabs before a third viral vector or mRNA shot has been accepted internationally, which can be seen from a study by Oxford University in Brazil published in The Lancet journal.
Yong said studies by Sweden and Indonesia have also proved that the method provided high immunity.
“According to a Chilean study on people who had already received two CoronaVac [Sinovac] jabs, the third CoronaVac, AstraZeneca or Pfizer jab gave immunity against symptomatic infection at the rate of 78.8 per cent, 93.2 per cent and 96.5 per cent, respectively,” he explained.
“Meanwhile, the third CoronaVac, AstraZeneca and Pfizer jabs helped reduce the death rate by 86.7 per cent, 98.1 per cent and 96.8 per cent, respectively.”
He said the centre will submit the study on immunity against the Omicron variant to the MPDI this week, which will prove that receiving a booster jab six months later provides higher immunity than three months.
“However, administrating the booster jab too late would come with risks as people could be infected with Covid-19 before receiving it,” he pointed out.
Yong also confirmed that a booster jab, especially viral vector or mRNA, provided significantly higher immunity against Omicron.
The Omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2 have already been discovered among Thais, while BA.3 is yet to be found in Thailand, the Centre of Medical Genomics wrote on its Facebook page on Tuesday.
The centre said that the Omicron BA.1 has been found in 514,417 patients worldwide, of which 561 are Thais.
“The Omicron BA.2 has been found in 10,811 patients worldwide and two of them are Thais,” the centre explained. “Meanwhile, Omicron BA.3 has been found in 86 patients worldwide but no Thai has been infected so far.”
The centre said the Omicron BA.2 has been nicknamed the “stealth variant” due to difficulties in comparison between BA.2 and Delta variants using RT-PCR method.
“In this regard, the UK Health Security Agency announced BA.2 as a variant under investigation on January 21 this year,” the centre said.
The centre added that it has not faced any difficulties in identifying Covid-19 variants, thanks to genotyping technology that enables the centre to provide test results in 24-48 hours.
“However, it remains unclear whether Omicron BA.2 can develop more severe symptoms than BA.1, but the epidemiology information shows that BA.2 is likely to spread faster than BA.1,” the centre added.
Thailand’s Omicron infection rate is currently rising but will begin to drop in March, a respiratory specialist forecast on Monday.
Dr Manoon Leechawengwongs urged people not to panic over the outbreak, adding that it was important for unvaccinated people to get their Covid-19 jab as soon as possible.
The Vichaiyut Hospital doctor went on to say that many countries have accepted that Omicron patients tend to develop mild symptoms similar to flu. But it remains unclear whether this is because the virus is weaker or because more people have immunity through vaccination or previous Covid-19 infection.
“However, South African researchers have confirmed that unvaccinated people infected with Omicron tend to develop mild symptoms,” he said.
Manoon also noted that infections in southern African countries at the epicentre of the Omicron outbreak began to decline this month.
He added that the number of Covid-19 deaths during southern Africa’s Omicron outbreak was lower compared to the Delta outbreak.
“We have to monitor the situation to see how long the Omicron outbreak in south African countries lasts,” he said. “It would be great news for people worldwide if Omicron becomes an endemic disease.”
Manoon also noted that the West is suffering higher rates of Omicron than Asia, and suggested this may be due to genetic differences.
The Omicron subvariant BA.2 is spreading rapidly in around 40 countries, including Singapore, India, Denmark, Sweden and the UK, Chulalongkorn University Faculty of Medicine lecturer Thira Woratanarat said on Monday.
Although there is still insufficient data on its severity and resistance to vaccines, researchers note that Omicron BA.2 is spreading faster than Omicron BA.1, he added.
“The characteristics of Omicron BA.2 are very different from Omicron BA.1, so I would urge scientists to speed up research on its transmission, virulence and vaccine resistance,” he wrote on Facebook.
BA.2, which has been nicknamed the “stealth variant” now accounts for almost half of cases in Denmark.
Thira also asked people to keep updated on the Covid-19 situation and protect themselves, even though Omicron is spreading more slowly in Thailand than in other countries.
People should wear two-layered face masks, avoid crowded and poorly ventilated places, avoid meeting with others, and keep at least one metre away from others.
“If you feel ill, you should take a break and see the doctor,” he said.
Omicron now has three subvariants, BA.1, BA.2 and BA.3, according to the World Health Organisation.
Insulin is well-known as the basic requirement to treat diabetes, but did you know that insulin was first discovered in 1921 by Frederick Banting, J.J.R. Macleod, Charles Best and James Collip. The first successful insulin injection was delivered to a boy named, Leonard Thompson, as the world’s first patient with type 1 diabetes, in 1922.
John Dawber, Vice President and General Manager of Novo Nordisk Pharma Thailand, said January 23, 1922, or today 100 years ago, was a life-changing day in a history of diabetes patients around the world. Without the discovery of insulin, the future treatment of Diabetes was unknown and unpredictable, with very poor outcomes for patients.
And ever since insulin was discovered in 1921, Novo Nordisk has been inspired to work to change the lives of patients living with Diabetes. Founded in 1923, Novo Nordisk now has offices in more than 170 countries. We have more than 44,000 Novo Nordisk people around the world, of which we employ about 200 Novo Nordisk people in Thailand.
“A journey of insulin, today recognises 100 years for diabetes treatment, and Novo Nordisk is entering the century of diabetes healthcare as well”
Insulin, was originally harvested and purified from pigs and cows, is even still today delivered by an injection under the skin. Since 1921 and during the next 30 years up to the 1950’s the work of researchers focussed on purification of the insulinand increasing the time in between each injection.
During the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s the innovation moved towards understanding the relationship between blood glucose levels, insulin levels and studying the links between diabetes control and long-term outcomes.
The 1980’s was a huge decade for people with diabetes as the first recombinant technology “human” insulin was made available, and the big old-fashioned syringe was replaced with a “pen”. Even today, 40 years later, human insulin remains the mainstay of treatment for millions of people around the world.
The 1990’s continued the pace of innovation with the first “designer insulins” or insulin analogues being developed. These insulins had action profiles which were smoother, more predictable, were either faster acting or slower acting depending on the patients need, and thus improved quality of life, and diabetes outcomes.
For Novo Nordisk, this journey continues. The company continue to innovate with research projects and still believe that there is much more to achieve to improve the lives of people with diabetes who use insulin. The company hope in the future to develop insulins which can further improve the quality of life for people living with Diabetes by making insulin use easier, safer and even less cumbersome.
Additionally, Novo Nordisk recognize that in many parts of the world, people to not have access to quality care or insulin, like we have in Thailand. Therefore, recently Novo Nordisk enrolled the 30,000th child in our Changing Diabetes in Children programme, which provides the complete diabetes care for kids in the least developed countries around the world.
In Novo Nordisk Pharma (Thailand) in 2020, we organized a fundraising event to help children with type 1 diabetes in Thailand in remote areas, which provided 1 Million THB to support necessary expenses for diabetes treatment, some educational scholarships for university through the Action4diabetes Foundation (A4D).
Finally, many people may have heard of Team Novo Nordisk. Team Novo Nordisk are a professional Cycling team who ALL live with Type 1 Diabetes. The team is sponsored by Novo Nordisk. They compete at the highest level of professional cycling, all over the world. Their mission is to Educate, Empower and Inspire kids, families, and Healthcare professionals everywhere, that living with Diabetes should not stop anyone from achieving their dreams. Novo Nordisk Pharma Thailand hope to welcome Team Novo Nordisk to race here in Thailand soon, and thus further spread their message of empowerment for people living with Type 1 Diabetes.
Novo Nordisk want to drive change to overcome diabetes and other serious chronic diseases. We have a great responsibility for the quality of our products, honesty, business ethics and sustainability of the environment. As Novo Nordisk are taking part in the daily care of over 30 million patients around the world and we are the manufacturer of insulin for around half the people taking insulin in the world, the company take their responsibilities very seriously.
German researchers have discovered why so many people who contract Covid-19 – especially the Omicron variant – also catch the influenza (flu) virus.
The discovery came from a study on Interferon type I (IFN-I), an antiviral protein that forms part of the body’s immune defences, according to Dr Anan Jongkaewwattana, who heads the NSTDA’s Veterinary Health Innovation and Management Research Group. With enough of this powerful antiviral protein, the body can prevent all kinds of viruses from entering deep into the system and making us sick.
Researchers used to believe that if the body was already infected with one virus, it would produce enough IFN-I to prevent infection by other viruses, reducing the chance of simultaneous infection by Covid-19 and influenza.
However, the data from this latest study found that Omicron has the power to inhibit production of IFN-I, meaning cells it infects produces four times less IFN-I than usual.
Also, Omicron itself is much more resistant to IFN-I than other Covid-19 variants.
Eradicating the original Wuhan variant from the body normally requires 50 units of IFN-I. Eradicating Delta requires up to 100 units. But Omicron requires 500 or more units of IFN-I before it is eliminated from the body.
This data explains why Omicron patients are more vulnerable to flu infections, since their immune systems are weaker because they use more of the antiviral IFN-I to fight off the Covid-19 variant.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, expert virologist Dr Yong Poovorawan said Chulalongkorn University’s Centre of Excellence in Clinical Virology is seeking volunteers who have already received two AstraZeneca jabs.
The centre will provide a third AstraZeneca jab to the volunteers and test their immunity 14 days and 28 days later to see how this compares to other boosters.
“If the volunteers’ immunity does not rise [after the booster is administered] the centre is ready to provide a fourth jab if the volunteers want,” he said.
To be eligible, volunteers must be:
• Above 18 years of age and healthy
• Not medical staff
• Never infected by Covid-19
• Received two jabs of AstraZeneca with the second jab between June 30 and August 29 last year.
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