The United Kingdom’s autonomous health agency, Public Health England (PHE), revealed in an unpublished non-peer review study on Saturday that two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which Indonesia is rolling out now, are 60 percent effective against the India variant two weeks after the jab. The efficacy rate is slightly lower than the vaccine’s 66 percent effectiveness against the UK variant. The analysis is based on data collected in April and May from 1,054 people confirmed to have had the Indian variant and 11,621 people who had the UK variant. The study included all age groups.

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Both variants — deemed concerning because they were found to be more transmissible — have also been locally transmitted in Indonesia.

While PHE scientists expected to see even higher effectiveness against hospitalization and death, they also noted that with only one dose, the AstraZeneca vaccine was 33 percent effective against symptomatic disease from the India variant, compared to 50 percent against the UK variant.

Indonesia recently suspended the rollout of a batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine to look into two recent deaths suspected to be linked to the vaccine while maintaining the use of other batches. The two incidents were among over a million doses of the vaccine already administered.

Health Ministry spokesperson Siti Nadia Tarmizi said the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine far outweighed the risks, urging the public to refrain from opting for certain vaccine brands.

"Vaccines, regardless of the brand, have the same benefits," Nadia said.

While Pfizer's one dose was found in the same PHE study to have similar effectiveness against the two variants, when given two doses, they were 88 percent effective against symptomatic disease from the India variant also two weeks after the second jab, compared to 93 percent effectiveness against the UK variant.

Indonesia has promised to roll out millions of Pfizer doses but has yet to sign a binding agreement with the American firm, citing a contested clause on the contract, state-owned pharma firm Bio Farma president director Honesti Basyir told lawmakers last Thursday.

The UK findings are consistent with both vaccines' clinical trial results, but the PHE said the lower effectiveness of AstraZeneca could also be explained by the fact that it was rolled out later than Pfizer in the UK, while other data shows that the former took a longer time to reach its maximum effectiveness.

Around 9.8 million Indonesians out of the country’s population of some 271 million people have received their second jab, a majority using Chinese firm Sinovac's CoronaVac vaccine. A separate private vaccination program run by state-owned and private companies is currently using the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

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A recent Health Ministry study of over 120,000 medical workers receiving the Sinovac vaccine revealed that it was 94 percent effective in preventing symptoms, 96 percent effective in preventing hospitalizations and 98 percent in preventing deaths, starting from 28 days and up to 64 days after the second jab. With only one dose, the figures dropped significantly to 13 percent for preventing the onset of symptoms and 53 percent for preventing hospitalizations.

The good news came amid concerns of vaccine hesitancy following reports of adverse effects found among vaccine recipients, especially after the suspension of the AstraZeneca batch.

"We hope that we can convince people [to get vaccinated] because some have become hesitant and are delaying [their vaccination]," Hindra Irawan, the head of the National Commission on Post-Immunization Accidents (Komnas KIPI), an independent body in charge of monitoring and investigating adverse vaccination effects, told lawmakers on Thursday.

 Read also: Calls for transparency after suspension of AstraZeneca vaccine batch

Hindra revealed that as of mid-May, the commission had received 229 reports of serious adverse effects and 10,627 non-serious adverse effects. The majority were found among the millions of Sinovac recipients.

Serious incidents refer to those that lead to hospitalization, disability and death, while non-serious effects are medical conditions that do not pose potential health risks to recipients. Adverse events may or may not be caused by the vaccine and vaccination process; hence the need for independent expert investigations should serious cases arise. Otherwise, experts widely consider these events to be generally normal and not exclusive to COVID-19 vaccines.

Thirty deaths have been reported of people who had just been inoculated, 27 of whom had received the Sinovac vaccine. However, Komnas KIPI found that the deaths were not related to the COVID-19 vaccine. Hindra said that among the 30 fatalities, 10 were due to COVID-19, 14 to heart and blood vessel issues, one to sudden kidney failure and two to uncontrolled diabetes and high blood pressure.

He added that there was insufficient medical data on the deceased Sinovac recipients for his team to determine they had died of the vaccine, unlike the case of the two AstraZeneca-linked deaths, which included a 22-year-old worker who developed a fever and headache after receiving the jab. The person died the next day after facing transportation difficulties and failing to receive prompt treatment. An autopsy will be performed on their body.

Another case was a 52-year-old online motorbike ride-hailing driver who had difficulties breathing a day prior to the vaccination and was later found to have uncontrolled tuberculosis and had developed severe pneumonia.

Hindra said the man had been interviewed before receiving his jab but had not been medically checked because of a lack of facilities at the vaccination post. He did not tell his vaccinators that he had had breathing difficulties the day before. He was later not able to get a hospital bed and intubated in time, Hindra added.

He said these cases offered lessons on the importance of improving emergency response in the country's healthcare system, including ambulance services, and for both vaccination staffers and recipients to understand what they needed to do under such situations. 

There have reportedly been cases where recipients could not reach out to health facilities assigned to receive reports of adverse effects and seek treatment.

Immunology expert Elizabeth Jane Soepardi said AstraZeneca had been used globally and that concerning adverse effects were very rare.

"The chances are much smaller than the chances of dying of COVID-19," she said.