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At least 12 hospitals in the country, including the General Hospital of the Philippines, will be selected as sites for the clinical trial of candidate vaccines for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) organized by the World Health Organization (WHO).
In the media forum organized by the Department of Health (DoH) on Friday, the Secretary of Science and Technology, Fortunato de la Peña, said that in addition to the hospital sites, eight different areas of the country would be chosen for the trial.
Five of the zones are located in Metro Manila, one in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), one in Cebu and one in Davao.
De la Peña said that zoning guarantees that a single clinical trial is carried out in each zone.
Potential participants in the Solidarity Trial will come from the top five or 10 barangay (villages) with a high number of Covid-19 cases based on their attack rates per 1,000 inhabitants.
“Because we want to test the efficacy of the vaccine, and we will do it in phases when there is a high rate of occurrence or attack,” said de la Peña.
In addition to the Solidarity Trial, independent trials could also be held in predetermined areas, de la Peña said.
Seventeen vaccine manufacturers have signed agreements with the Philippines to test their products here.
Six of them, the Gamaleya Research Institute of Russia; Sinovac Biotech Ltd., Sinopharm Group Co. Ltd. and ZFSW Biotech of China; Adimmune Corp. of Taiwan; and The University of Queensland-CSL Laboratories of Australia, are about to sign data confidentiality agreements.
De la Peña said the panel of vaccine experts is monitoring several trials that have been halted due to safety concerns.
The director general of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Rolando Enrique Domingo, said that clinical trials could be completed before the end of the year at the earliest, with a possible application for registration within the first quarter of next year.
If trials are completed in December or January, and a company submits its application to the FDA, “then it is possible that in April 2021 we will have an approved vaccine,” Domingo said.
He urged local governments to refrain from starting their own clinical trials after Cavite Governor Juanito Víctor “Jonvic” Remulla announced plans to conduct trials for 10,000 residents.
“That is not allowed … we have very strict protocols when it comes to human trials, especially for a vaccine that does not yet exist,” said Domingo.
In a related development, the government now requires asymptomatic and mild coronavirus patients whose homes do not meet home quarantine requirements to undergo isolation at the facility.
In a statement, Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said that the Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) approved the directive after its meeting Thursday.
Exempt from the directive are patients considered vulnerable or with comorbidities by a local health worker and whose homes meet the requirements for home isolation of the DoH and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
“Another exception would be when Covid-19 Ligtas Centers within the region are fully occupied and the local government unit does not have enough isolation facilities,” he added.
In July, the IATF-EID required that mild and asymptomatic Covid-19 cases be isolated in quarantine facilities, especially if they did not have their own bedroom and bathroom.
The Secretary of the Interior, Eduardo Año, had proposed to ban home quarantine for patients with coronavirus.
There are four We Heal As One Centers in Metro Manila and two in Clark, Pampanga.
These facilities are the Ninoy Aquino Stadium and the Rizal Memorial Stadium at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex; the forum halls of the Philippine International Convention Center and the World Trade Center in Pasay City; the Asean Convention Center in Clark, Pampanga; and the Administrative Center of the National Government in New Clark City, Capas, Tarlac.
As of Friday, the country had 296,755 Covid cases, 5,127 deaths from the virus, and 231,928 recoveries.
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