Which Vaccine will be accepted by Australians?

Australia has approved two vaccines so far, but in the city of Budapest, one Australian and his family managed to collect five different jabs between them.

Father of two Rohan O’Brien has recently returned from Hungary, which has approved eight COVID-19 vaccines so far, more than any other country.

Russia’s vaccine offering, Sputnik V, has an efficacy of 91.6 per cent according to results published in The Lancet, but its deployment has proved controversial in Europe.

Hungary has diverged from the rest of the European Union in administering the Russian jab, while the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has launched a “rolling review” of Sputnik V.

Much has been said of vaccine diplomacy, with Russia donating Sputnik V doses to Palestinian territories, China donating vaccines to South-East Asian neighbours and the Pacific, the US’s Operation Warp Speed and India’s distribution of locally-manufactured AstraZeneca to the world.    

Even the name “Sputnik” is political, hearkening back to the world’s first satellite launched into space by the Soviet Union, when the then-superpower was leading the space race during the Cold War.

/ Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite sent into orbit in 1957

He said “of course” politics was getting in the way of a promising vaccine, and the same went for China’s Sinopharm, which has a reported efficacy of 79 per cent and was recently approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization.

Did the early Sputnik V push backfire? 

Back in August, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country had authorised the vaccine — and that his own daughter had been injected with it — before final trials were complete.

That was well before the phase three results had been published in The Lancet — a leading peer-reviewed health journal — it is possible that the misstep fuelled distrust and vaccine hesitancy in Russia. Russia has one of the highest vaccine hesitancy rates in the world, around 50 per cent of people don’t intend to get the vaccine.

Sputnik V is an adenovirus viral vector vaccine, similar to the AstraZeneca jab, which has an efficacy of 76 per cent, according to updates from the company.

The similarity means it could potentially be manufactured in Melbourne, but it is quite unlikely that Sputnik V is one that Australia will take up.

On the question of Sputnik V, the Department of Health said: “The TGA [Therapeutic Goods Administration] will consider any application made by a sponsor for a COVID-19 vaccine”.

Australians vaccinated in other countries

Australia has approved two vaccines — Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

But many Australians are getting inoculated abroad with other jabs, such as China’s Sinopharm.

Mr O’Brien is relieved to be back in Australia and quarantining, but hopes one day vaccinations will allow for people to travel more freely. 

In Ireland, the government recently allowed an exemption from mandatory hotel quarantine for those that have been vaccinated by certain approved vaccines, but the Russian and Chinese jabs were not on the list.

For now, anyone returning to Australia must complete hotel quarantine, regardless of their vaccination status or which jab they’ve received.

China and India’s vaccine rivalry

Experts say Beijing and New Delhi are sending millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccinations abroad in the hopes of shoring up their international reputations and securing some political goodwill in return.

/ China and India’s vaccine rivalry

The government is currently considering when and how to reopen our borders safely to low risk countries. This will be a step-by-step process, underpinned by the latest medical advice and based on robust risk assessments. However, the government has not yet taken any decision on whether an individual’s vaccination status will facilitate entry into Australia.”

Mr O’Brien hopes that one day jabs like his will be recognised at home, and said he felt it was important to get vaccinated to protect elderly members of his family.

Hotel quarantine will also be a big strain on his family’s finances, and Mr O’Brien said he was grateful to generous family members who helped to pay for them to come home.

He’s now looking forward to introducing his two young sons to his family in Australia for the first time.

The need for global vaccine coverage

Mr O’Brien and his family members in Hungary are something of a microcosm, with people getting different vaccines the world over.

“These different vaccines will have variable effectiveness, but to some degree that’s true person to person anyway,” said Catherine Bennett, chair in epidemiology at Deakin University.

/ Catherine Bennett, chair in epidemiology at Deakin University

“This variability might increase if your family was exposed to a variant of concern that might be covered better by one vaccine and not another.

“But even if someone was infected in the family, they will still likely be less infectious to others, and if others are all vaccinated with some protection, then there is a little chance of transmission occurring.”

She added there is research underway looking at the “potential benefits of switching from one vaccine to another”, even between first and second jabs.

“Better to have all vaccinated even with mismatched vaccines than to have one or more not vaccinated at all.”

Professor Bennett said it was vital to see vaccination as a global problem, to avoid outbreaks of new variants in countries with less robust health systems.