'Vaccine optimism' could be behind COVID-19 spike in PH -- WHO

Mar 22, 2021 05:16 PM

World Health Organization (WHO) Philippines representative Rabindra Abeyasinghe said people's "vaccine optimism" may have contributed to the sharp increase in the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases not only in the Philippines, but also in other countries.

A health worker holds a vial of Russia's Sputnik V (Gam-COVID-Vac) Covid-19 vaccine in Belgrade Fair turned into a vaccination centre, on February 4, 2021. - Inside the dome of Belgrade's fairgrounds, dozens of nurses in protective suits inject Covid-19 jabs into young and old alike, working with an efficiency that has turned Serbia into continental Europe's fastest vaccinator. The small Balkan country has inoculated more than 450,000 of its seven million population in almost two weeks, a rate that exceeds all countries in Europe outside the United Kingdom, according to the scientific publication Our World in Data. (Photo by Andrej ISAKOVIC / AFP)

"With the arrival of the vaccines, people started relaxing their protocol, compliance, (and) public health behaviors," Abeyasinghe said during the Laging Handa public briefing on Monday, March 22.

"This was partly because of the long quarantine period and long lockdowns that people have undergone. And so with the arrival of vaccines in many countries, there was optimism that people can go back quickly to the way they lived their life before the pandemic," he added.

Abeyasinghe said small changes in compliance with the protocols could cause faster virus transmission.

"That could have been one of the causes why we are seeing increased transmission here in the Philippines also," he said, noting that the increase in COVID-19 cases is also a global trend.

After a stabilization of transmission in January and early February 2021, Abeyasinghe noted that "it was said on Friday last week (March 19) that this was the fourth consecutive week we are seeing a week-on-week increase of the number cases reported globally."

While it could be related to vaccine optimism and arrival of vaccines, as well as public health protocols complacency, "it could also be to some extent linked to circulation of new variants that are thought to have increased transmissibility," he said.

"The mix of these factors could be causing high level of transmission in the Philippines also," he added.

The WHO, he said, is working continuously with local authorities to study the P.3 COVID-19 variant that was first detected in the Philippines.

"This process takes a long time the P.3 variant was confirmed only in early March, late February this is going to take a few more weeks or months to understand the epidemiological significance of the P.3 variant whether it is linked to increased transmissibility and severity of disease," Abeyasinghe said.