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The Department of Health (DoH) is considering several hospitals in Metro Manila and Cebu City as locations for clinical trials of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccine that is being developed in Russia.
The Philippines has signed a confidentiality agreement with the researchers behind the development of the Sputnik 5 vaccine.
At a press conference on Monday, Undersecretary of Health María Rosario Vergeire said that while there were still discussions about which vaccines would be used for the clinical trial to be carried out in the Philippines, several hospitals were already looking to administer the vaccine. vaccinate volunteers.
He mentioned the General Hospital of the Philippines, the San Lazaro Hospital, the Manila Medical Hospital and the Tropical Medicine Research Institute in Metro Manila, and the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City.
Vergeire said that discussions on China’s Sinovac vaccine trials were still ongoing,
Sinovac was still undergoing phase two clinical trials, he noted.
The official distributor of the vaccine, IP Biotech, has submitted confidentiality disclosure agreements to the Philippine authorities and is processing requests for the phase 3 study.
Science and Technology Secretary Fortunato de la Peña said in a radio interview Monday that the country had signed disclosure agreements with Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute.
The deals will be studied by a panel of Philippine vaccine experts, who will determine whether phase 3 trials for Sputnik 5 can be conducted in the Philippines before the end of the year.
“The data that they will give us and that our panel of vaccine experts will study will be confidential … Russia has started to submit its data for Sputnik V and is now being studied by our panel of vaccine experts,” de la Peña said.
Vergeire said that while there have been studies on the potential benefits of taking the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, used primarily to prevent tuberculosis, the DoH does not yet have strong evidence that BCG can be effective against Covid-19.
On Monday, the country registered 3,446 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total to 220,819 cases.
