Coronavirus Chronicle in Moldova: Waiting for Vaccine

Marina DRAGALIN The epidemiological situation in Moldova is steadily deteriorating - morbidity and mortality rates are growing and so does the number of patients in serious condition. In such a situation, all hopes in turning the tide are associated with obtaining a COVID-19 vaccine and the corresponding requests have already been sent to WHO, Russia and the European Union. COVID-19 continues to walk through the planet: more than 21 million people have become infected with the new infection worldwide, 750 thousand have died from complications associated with the disease. Consistently difficult remains the epidemiological situation in our republic as well. Over the past two weeks, almost five thousand people have fallen ill, and the total number of infected has passed the mark of 29 thousand. A new COVID-19 death record was set yesterday, it amounted to 15 people, the daily infection’s threshold was almost crossed (Wednesday registered 474 cases). In hospitals, 468 patients with coronavirus are in serious condition, 25 of them are connected to mechanical ventilation devices. A severe epidemiological situation is observed not only in Moldova, but also within its neighbors. This week, both Ukraine and Romania updated their anti-records for the number of cases and deaths per day. At the same time, forecasts for both countries are also disappointing. Despite the pandemic and a steady number of cases increase, the population of the republic, mostly, continues to be rather frivolous on the need to wear protective masks, maintain social distance and other household methods to combat the infection spread. Moreover, almost two-thirds of Moldovans no longer actually consider coronavirus a dangerous disease: such a data contains the study conducted by the Ministry of Health of Moldova. Unlike the population, authorities continue to take the pandemic as seriously as possible. Thus, the fight against coronavirus became one of the main topics of the Supreme Security Council meeting held this week. According to its results, President Igor Dodon noted that as part of the further fight against COVID-19, it is planned to open two more laboratories to make analysis of bioassays in the republic. According to the head of state, now the country has a sufficient number of tests - more than 100 thousand pieces, and another 130 thousand are in the process of being purchased. However, he urged not to rely on the herd immunity theory, that many experts discuss about. “Herd immunity existence is being actively discussed. What does this mean? Supposedly, if you were infected once, antibodies appear, and you will not get sick the second time. What do the statistics show? In EU countries, herd immunity is only about 3%. What does it mean? No more than 3% receive immunity out of those who get sick. In Moldova, at this stage, there are at least 4 cases of re-infection of those who got over coronavirus earlier,” Dodon said. The president also added that recently imported cases of infection have become more frequent, mainly from those who return from holidays in Turkey and Romania. Separately, the president spoke about the vaccine. He explained that there is no vaccine in the world, ready to be exported to other countries, however, Moldova has already registered with the WHO in order to "immediately receive the vaccine as soon as it appears." Actually, one of the most notable topic in the world media sphere this week was that of vaccine. It was first of all, due to the Russian President Vladimir Putin statements about registering the world's first coronavirus vaccine, bearing a symbolic name "Sputnik V". The President of the Russian Federation noted that the vaccine works effectively, creates a stable immunity to COVID-19 with people vaccinated and does not cause serious side effects. “According to the clinical trials results, the vaccine has shown high efficacy and safety. All the volunteers developed high titers of antibodies to COVID-19, while none of them had serious complications of immunization,” the head of the Russian Ministry of Health said. Despite the skeptical attitude towards the Russian vaccine from a number of Western countries and organizations (they believe that it has not yet passed all the necessary clinical trials), as well as the cautious estimates of the WHO, more than 20 countries are said to have become interested in Sputnik. One of them, apparently, is Moldova. At least Chisinau sent a request to Moscow with a request to provide the vaccine. This announced President Igor Dodon at a meeting with the Russian Ambassador to Moldova Oleg Vasnetsov. However, on the vaccines issue, Chisinau counts not only on Moscow, but also on the European Union. Yesterday, the head of the Moldovan Medicines Agency, Eremei Priseajniuc, who is on a visit to Bucharest, discussed assistance in the fight against coronavirus with the chairman of the research commission at the European Parliament, Cristian Busoi. “We count on Romania and the EU support to receive COVID-19 vaccines and EU-approved drugs used to treat the virus,” Priseajniuc said after the meeting. Following the negotiations, it became known that Romania will propose the European Commission to include Moldova in the list of countries for receiving the vaccine against coronavirus when it appears in the European Union, and also receiving Remdesivir (the first EU-approved drug for the coronavirus treatment). According to Nicolae Furtuna, the head of National Agency for Public Health, people from high-risk categories will be the first in Moldova to receive the coronavirus vaccine. “Nowadays, no country is vaccinated against coronavirus, because there are no vaccinations yet. But Moldova is already waiting for it. We recently discussed this with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. At the meeting, we talked about the fact that when a safe vaccine against the coronavirus appears, it will be possible to vaccinate the citizens of Moldova who are most at risk from the coronavirus,” Furtuna said. Such a republic leadership’s high attention to coronavirus vaccines is quite understandable. The number of active (which is important) cases into Moldova is constantly increasing, and this trend has not changed over the past weeks. At the same time, we are no longer talking about returning quarantine restrictions; as can be seen even from the mentioned study of the Moldovan Ministry of Health, this idea will clearly not find support among the majority of the country's residents, and the authorities have to take this into account on the eve of important electoral processes. Nevertheless, such a dynamics of the current epidemiological situation development may lead Moldova to the risk of finding itself in the second wave of the pandemic, not actually having coped even with the first one yet.