Faculty of Medicine professor talks about safety of the Covid vaccine: All skeptics should read this

Ever since the pandemic of coronavirus was declared, the fear from this scourge that humanity is facing descended on the world, and shortly afterwards came real existential crises, economic collapses, but also new measures of prevention and protection against Covid 19.

We are accustomed to the life changes that resulted from the effects of SARS-CoV-2, a disease caused by coronavirus that is said to have originated in Wuhan, China, and is assumed to have come from bats.

However, the greatest panic and anxiety occurred when it was discovered that in patients who contracted the new virus and recovered, the antibodies are lost after a while, and according to the latest studies the possibility of a person being re-infected with the same virus is not ruled, when a more severe clinical picture occurs.

While Covid 19 still remains an unknown to medicine, new coronavirus vaccines are being developed in parallel, as the only way to develop collective immunity, and several large pharmaceutical companies are in the race with Pfizer and Moderna leading the way to produce a vaccine that will soon be used, as well as the Oxford vaccine and the Russian one, Sputnik V.

It is undeniable that vaccines are the greatest medical achievement in the history of medicine, but since this is a new model where information RNA (mRNA) molecules will be used to send genetic instructions to cells, skepticism has developed among some, so it is noticed that there is a lack of specific and additional information, where, by and large,  efficacy is emphasized, while the term "safety" is present in statements and claims shyly.

We invited Professor Dr. Dragan Delic to tell us all about the "uncertainty" we are facing, especially those who don't have general medical knowledge and who are afraid of innovative methods of acquiring collective immunity to SARS-CoV-2.

Since the vaccine will be given to humans for the FIRST TIME, how will it "tell" a cell to stop producing antibodies? Is there a switch that could stop the possible consequence of the immune complex since there is no STOP codon that terminates protein synthesis?

"That is a question for those who work on vaccines, and I think that issue of safety should not be brought up so much. There are legal mechanisms, procedures, institutions, there are professionals that are in charge of assessing the effectiveness and safety of drugs, and even vaccines. It's nothing new when a new vaccine or a new medicine appears in human medicine," said Professor Delic.

The doctor mentioned that there are laws that we "copied" from the European Union, and that there are also experts that is in charge of assessing safety and efficacy.

"The vaccine must be at least 80 percent effective, so 80 percent must develop those antibodies. It's not just protective antibodies, it's the so-called humoral immunity. This is where cellular immunity develops, which is fairly more complex, it is an immune response that is related to individual cells. Among them, there are memory cells that, conditionally speaking, remember that they were in contact with the antigen that belongs to the virus," Dr. Dragan Delic explained.

This professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade also mentioned that this is a new type of technology, which includes genetic engineering, molecular biology, virology, IT technology, and he believes that medicine has developed in the extreme.

"For something that used to take us ten years, when a clinical trial lasted 3-8 years, for vaccines up to 10, now, thanks to the technology and knowledge that has been acquired, human medicine is able to provide us relatively quickly with a safe and effective vaccine," the doctor concluded.

This is not about a live virus, this is a virus that serves as a vector, as a carrier of a part of the genetic material of coronavirus. There are of course also RNA technologies that are used.

Dr. Delic explained that an entire team of infectologists, immunologists, epidemiologists and other doctors already works on and makes decisions about the vaccine, and consider all aspects of possible problems with the vaccine.

"Us infectologists are not able to see every aspect. It's a team approach to the problem in which we all participate, we who are people of profession, science and experience. This should not be discussed by surgeons or psychiatrists. Every doctor should deal with what they are trained for and what they have experience in, not with what they read somewhere on the internet," said Dr. Delic.

The professor was explicit that immunologists should deal with vaccination issues the most. He also stated that, when it comes to the vaccine, but also to any medicine, safety is examined first, while the procedures that regulate it are very serious.

According to him, there is no room for manipulation here. Safety is tested in the first phase of trials, the second phase is efficacy, and the third is interaction with other drugs.

Dr. Dragan Delic points out that everyone will be informed about the safety that worries many and that a doctor is under obligation to inform each person about indications, counter-indications, and side effects.

(Telegraf.rs)