File photo: Argentine President Alberto Fernández receives the first dose of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 at the Posadas hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jan 21, 2021. Esteban Collazo / Argentine Presidency. Please note: this photograph was provided by a third party.

The positive for COVID-19 that was known today Saturday after midnight and that iPresident Alberto Fernández himself reported through his Twitter account it almost answers a question that not even world science could yet answer: lthe possibility that a person can contract coronavirus despite being vaccinated. In the case of the Argentine president, he received the two corresponding doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, formulated with two different adenoviruses.

It should be noted that for these hours there is still a lack of confirmation of its positive that the PCR test will provide on which the result is still awaited. And two questions also persist: it remains to be confirmed through a genomic study if he was infected with the same original variant of SARS-COV-2 or with the new strains that circulate in the country -Manaos, United Kingdom, Rio- as well as what amount of antibodies generated as vaccinated.

Fernández on his birthday in the afternoon first felt a headache, and then he had a fever -37.5-, fatigue and dejection; which quickly triggered the consultation with his personal physician, Dr. Federico Saavedra. Todo indicates that the president in his capacity as vaccinated will treat the COVID-19 disease as a mild condition and is protected from eventual hospitalization, and above all that it becomes a severe patient or requires intensive treatment.

As he could know Infobae through the Presidential Medical Unit, Until now the president is in good clinical health, from the positive that the rapid antigen test provided. The presidential medical unit will prepare your isolation, your heart blood pressure will be monitored, and you will undergo a pulmonary evaluation. It also transpired that his neurological health will be monitored to control what is known among the postCOVID sequelae as mental fog.

From the presidential environment, special emphasis was placed on remarking that both the vaccine that Fernández received – Sputnik V – and the rest, “its effectiveness is mainly against the severity of the disease, lowering mortality. They are not a shield to avoid contagion, but the disease is transmitted in a mild way, as with the flu. The vaccine did not fail, but instead makes the transit light or moderate and that mortality remains at low to zero levels.”.

Reinfection and vaccinated

Just a few days ago, in a statement that sparked global interest, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rochelle Walensky, had celebrated the fact that those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19, for the most part, “they are not carriers of the virus.” But given the doubts that such a statement aroused among the scientific community, The CDC clarified that it is possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19. The evidence is unclear if they can transmit the virus to other people. We continue to evaluate the evidence. “

For the Argentine infectologist and vaccine expert, Roberto Debbag, “the cases of infection after vaccination they are rare but do occur. It can happen after the first dose or after the second ”. In this way, post-vaccination care with social distance and a mask becomes essential ”, he explained to Infobae.

LVaccines can elicit two main types of immunity. On the one hand, “effective immunity,” which can prevent a pathogen from causing serious disease, but cannot prevent it from entering the body or making more copies of itself. And on the other, the sterilizing immunity, which can prevent infection and even prevent asymptomatic cases. Ideally, a vaccine can produce sterilizing immunity.

Expert look

Regarding reinfection and vaccinated, the infectious disease doctor Eduardo López assured Infobae that “everything will depend on the number of doses of a vaccine that a person has been given, the specific type of vaccine and the number of days that have passed since the application. If you give yourself the vaccine today, the first fourteen days you can get it because you still do not have antibodies. The effectiveness of Sputnik V, for example, begins after ten days. In studies, the AstraZeneca vaccine after the first dose in the first four weeks was shown to be no more than 50% effective. Even after the second dose, it does not exceed 70% ”.

The vaccine protects against severe forms of the disease. It does not avoid contagion 100%. That is why we say that the vaccine is one more element of protection against the virus and we must continue to take care of ourselves”, Said infectologist Lautaro de Vedia, former president of the Argentine Society of Infectology, consulted by this means.

 REUTERS / NEXU Scientific Communication

REUTERS / NEXU Scientific Communication

The debate continues and there is still no consensus among global scientists that current research is far from sufficient to state that vaccinated people cannot spread the virus.

The case of the President of the Argentine Republic reaffirms the scientific questions for which there are still no final answers among the available vaccines against COVID-19 -without distinction of technological platforms, be they genomic messenger RNA or those formulated with adenovirus such as Sputnik or AstraZeneca- about how long the protection or the so-called period of immunity finally lasts on the inoculate.

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