Beware fake news and conspiracy theories in vaccine search

Don’t believe everything you hear or see on the internet about vaccination but read articles from good sources says  Digna Wong, coordinator of the Center for Clinical Research and Translational Medicine of the Institute for Scientific Research and High Technology Services and member of tPanama’s Covid-19.  Vaccine Research Consortium

She clarified that the vaccine against  COVID-19  that is being investigated is not based on live attenuated viruses and it is not possible that it causes the disease “There are endless falsehoods,” about vaccination against coronavirus. Among the most frequent is that it produces genetic modifications and that the vaccine that we will use in the clinical trial can cause Covid-19 disease. Other hoaxes are that vaccines contain microchips to control people’s movements or that they have toxic metals.

In Panama, the phase 2 clinical trial of the German CureVac vaccine should begin in the next few days and then the vaccine from the Chinese biotechnology company Clover.

The first vaccine in history was developed by the English doctor Edgard Jenner in 1796 to combat smallpox, and since then the use of these biological products has prevented between 2 and 3 million deaths a  year, according to the  WHO.

Despite the scientific consensus on their effectiveness and rigor in their development, vaccines have not stopped having detractors, even in times of pandemic.

Currently,  two phase 2 studies and one phase 3 study are finalized and will be part of other worldwide clinical studies of vaccines against Covid-19. The first clinical trial, which will start in Panama in the next few days, is with the German CureVac vaccine. 

In order to obtain new drugs and vaccines, it is necessary to complete all the development phases, both preclinical and clinical phases, without exceptions. From these studies, it is required that the scientific evidence generated in all phases, , be published and allow the evaluation of safety and efficacy data by scientific groups and independent evaluation committees, guaranteeing the maximum profit and minimum foreseeable risk. It is very important to highlight the role that local and international regulatory authorities also play in the development of all clinical trials.

Most of the studies that have been evaluated consider the administration of two doses of vaccine, which are applied in a certain period of time. are followed for safety and adverse events.

The vaccines that are being developed internationally are designed with a global perspective. They are multicenter trials, in which volunteers from various countries are included. Panama’s participation in vaccine research studies is key, since it offers us safety and immunogenicity data in our population, to be sure that its behavior is similar to other parts of the world.