Dr. Ali Sultan
The roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination in Qatar and around the world could provide herd immunity from the pandemic within this year. If the ongoing vaccination campaign goes well, herd immunity could be reached by summer’s end and situation will be close to normal by the end of 2021, according to Professor of Teaching in Microbiology and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WMC-Q), Dr. Ali Sultan.
“This estimate is dependent on significant numbers of people in Qatar and around the world being willing to be vaccinated with one of several vaccines in various stages of development. If 75% to 80% of people are vaccinated, then we could approach herd immunity by summer’s end and situation close to where we were before the pandemic by the end of 2021,” Dr. Sultan told The Peninsula.
“This may allow us to reach some degree of ‘normality’ that is close to where we were before the pandemic,” he added. Herd immunity is when a large part of the population is immune to a specific disease.
While scientists, including Dr. Sultan, are excited at the prospect of an effective vaccine and the prospect of returning to normalcy, it is important to temper this enthusiasm with caution. Several questions still remain about how much protection an effective vaccine offers, to whom and for how long.
According to Dr. Ali Sultan, starting a mass vaccination program is an important first step towards ending this pandemic. And it has come relatively quickly. Producing an effective vaccine against an infectious disease is a long process that in the past has usually taken many years. The development of the COVID-19 vaccine within a span of 8-9 month, on the other hand, has been extraordinarily fast.
“One has to remember that COVID-19 vaccine won’t be available immediately for everybody. While early evidence suggests that the 5 available vaccines reduce people’s risk of developing COVID-19 by around 80-95%, that still means a small fraction could get sick — and as long as the virus is as widespread as it is now, even that small share could be a big number. Still 5-20% of the population won’t get protected with the current vaccines and this is really high number,” said Dr. Sultan.
“We don’t yet know whether vaccinated people can spread the virus; and coronavirus is likely to continue its rapid spread until a large majority of the population is vaccinated or has survived a natural infection. The bottom line is that although an effective vaccine will certainly diminish greatly the relative risk of transmission, we still should not completely abandon basic public health measures, including the wearing of masks, hand hygiene and physical distancing,” he added.
According to Dr. Sultan, another issue to consider is re-infection, though rare, may still occur. Hence, he emphasised that strict practice of precautions against COVID-19 is essential and in the winter, it is particularly important to not gather indoors in small or large groups. “Also, get a flu shot,” he said.
Dr. Sultan also highlighted about post-COVID effect on the health of those infected.
“We are just beginning to learn more about the after-effects of the infection. Reports are coming out describing long-term lung, heart, kidney and other body organs effects. Some people, now referred to as long-haulers, are also reporting that their COVID-19 symptoms keep dragging on for weeks or months from the time they were initially infected,” he said.
“These symptoms include everything from headaches and cognitive problems to mood changes, fatigue, decreased exercise tolerance, and body ache. We are learning more about the consequences of COVID-19 as the months pass and our experience grows, and it will require more study to determine, for example, if some of these long-term effects are the result of long ICU stays with severe illness of any kind, versus specific features of COVID-19 infection,” he added.
Emphasising on most important lessons that pandemic taught us, Dr. Sultan said that it includes, science and data should guide a decision now and in the future, practicing good hygienic measures could drastically reduce the spread and thereby eliminate new cases of COVID-19 and help to protect us from other infections, health authorities and government bodies should have plans and preparedness programs in place in order to avoid future pandemics.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has been a test, demonstrating that multilateral cooperation is the key to overcoming global challenges,” he said.
