Protective Duration of ChAdOx1 and BNT162b2 Vaccines Against SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: A limited number of studies have addressed the protective duration of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines following primary and booster doses in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the protective duration of primary and booster doses of BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 COVID-19 vaccine batches in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted from 1 January to 31 December, 2021. The study included 53,354 people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 2 weeks or more after receiving at least a primary vaccination of either the ChAdOx1 or BNT162b2 vaccine. RESULTS: The total median protective duration of both primary COVID-19 vaccinations was 134 days. Heterologous primary vaccination (ChAdOx1 followed by BNT162b2) showed a significantly higher median protective duration of 142 days. The results show that the total median protective duration of the first booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines was 57 days. ChAdOx1 batch code C1 was found to have the most extended protective duration of 173 days (range 163-192 days). CONCLUSIONS: The current study revealed that the median protective duration of ChAdOx1 and BNT162b2 COVID-19 primary vaccination regimens administered in Saudi Arabia in 2021 was 134 days and that heterologous primary vaccination (ChAdOx1→BNT162b2) exhibited a significantly higher protective duration than other vaccination regimens.

Impact of COVID-19 on the 937 Telephone Medical Consultation Service in Saudi Arabia.

The impact of COVID-19 on healthcare services has been profound. One major impact has been underutilization of traditional healthcare services by patients. In 2020, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MoH) started offering general COVID-19 enquiries, education, and medical and psychological consultations around the clock via their 937-Call Center. Given this major change, there was a need to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Call Center services, specifically medical consultations, to suggest future recommendations for patient care optimization. This descriptive study analyzed routinely collected data on the 937-Call Center service between March 2020 and September 2020. Data were reviewed, coded, verified, and analyzed using SPSS v22. There was a 296% increase in the number of calls received by the 937-Call Center in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The majority of calls received in 2020 were general medical enquiries (98.41%), but about three million COVID-19-specific enquiries were also received in 2020. The increased number of calls was managed by accepting volunteers to handle calls: an average of 236 volunteers per month, handling about 20% of the total call volume. The majority of volunteers were physicians but with the presence of pharmacists, psychologists, and specialized healthcare workers such as nutritionists. Utilization of the 937-Call Center increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that it has been an effective strategy for combatting the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. Further research is recommended to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on public awareness of the 937-Call Center and other health-related mobile apps.

Knowledge, beliefs, and acceptability of people toward new COVID-19 vaccines: a pilot study.

A cross-section pilot study was done to determine the knowledge and belief toward new COVID-19 vaccines among a small sample size group of people. A new Vaccine Acceptability Questionnaire (VAQ) consists of 31 questions that were concerned about three elements: underlying factors, knowledge, and beliefs. The study included 96 people from the different regions of Saudi Arabia who had accepted to participate in this pilot study. Around 31% of the included people had low to very low acceptability toward COVID-19 vaccines; however, the other 69% had moderate to high acceptability. The new simple designed questionnaire (VAQ) could be effective in assessing knowledge, beliefs, and acceptability toward COVID-19 vaccination among a specific group of population.