Duque: Pfizer was willing to ‘prioritize’ PH, but no details were established

MANILA, Philippines – Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Friday that he learned that with the help of the Trump administration, the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer would “prioritize” the Philippines for its vaccines, but the plan did not include details. firm as the shipping schedules. or the number of doses to be delivered.

Duque has been criticized for allegedly “dropping the ball” on Pfizer vaccination after Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. and the Philippine Ambassador to Washington José Manuel Romualdez began talks with the secretary in July. of State of the United States, Mike Pompeo, and the American pharmaceutical for an alleged shipment of 10 million doses of their vaccines to the country in January.

He told the Inquirer that during a virtual meeting sometime in June or July, Locsin and Romualdez informed government officials that they could “get some kind of preference [from the] Trump said that Pfizer will provide the vaccines. “

“It was very general, nothing specific. No final amount was mentioned. It was just said that Pfizer will give priority to the Philippines, ”Duque said in a telephone interview.

Among the cabinet officials who participated in that meeting were the Secretary of Finance, Carlos Domínguez III, and the main executor of the National Task Force against COVID-19, Carlito Gálvez Jr., he said.

‘Goodwill gesture

Duque said the plan must have been the expression of “goodwill” from the US government towards the Philippines.

However, he said that even with the Trump administration’s “political accommodation”, all candidate vaccines, including Pfizer’s, would still have to go through the country’s regulatory processes.

In addition to obtaining clearance from the vaccine expert panel and ethics review board, as well as approval from the Food and Drug Administration, the vaccine would also need to be approved for purchase by the Health Technology Assessment Council. All of these are requirements of the universal health care law.

“They will be evaluated again based on a different set of parameters, such as cost effectiveness and feasibility of implementation,” Duque said.

The vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech has a 95 percent efficacy rate, but it must be stored in a freezer with a temperature of -70 degrees Celsius or lower.

Duque said that two weeks ago Senator Koko Pimentel III warned him to “be careful” when ordering the Pfizer vaccine due to the lack of ultra-low-rise freezers in public health facilities.

‘First date’

“We are all aware of all these limitations. There really needs to be a process and science behind each [decision],” he said.

In September, Pfizer representatives met with the Department of Health (DOH) and other government officials to discuss possible arrangements once the vaccine is available.

The Undersecretary of Health, María Rosario Vergeire, said it was the “first meeting” with Pfizer and that the discussions centered on the confidentiality disclosure agreement (CDA).

He noted that there was no mention of any schedule or supply volumes that will be made available to the Philippines.

“This was really for data sharing. The CDA was so that we could start our conversations and our experts could see their documents, [and that] Any information that we speak about cannot be disclosed to anyone or the public, ”Vergeire said.

‘Stop blaming the game’

“The CDA did not contain operational and technical details. It did not include how many doses, what period and if there will be deliveries already. There’s no such thing. This was an initial data exchange [agreement]signed in October ”, he added.

Taguig-Pateros representative Alan Peter Cayetano, the former president, called on officials to “stop the blame game.”

“Let’s focus on the remedy. So whether someone drops the ball or not, there is a right time for that. But it is clear that we cannot drop the ball, ”he said.

“For me, criticism has a purpose at a certain moment,” Cayetano said. “But if they are critical all the time, they may not be able to form a plan. So let’s give them a chance. “

Locsin said someone had dropped the ball and the country ended up losing 10 million doses of the vaccine that allegedly went to Singapore. Senator Panfilo Lacson, quoting Romualdez, said Locsin was referring to Duque after the health secretary failed to present a CDA that would have allowed the deal to go through.

Cayetano said that there were “errors and balls that have been dropped” in the implementation of the social improvement program and even in the DOH.

He said people must be held accountable, but not before the work is done because it would be “difficult to change the men in the middle of the battle.”

“But I remind you that we will all be judged, especially us in the government and especially the president, on how we implement the vaccination program,” Cayetano said. “If you go from three to five years and there are no livelihoods or companies cannot normalize, the virus may not kill you, but hunger or poverty will. If Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, UK, Japan, US have a time frame of one to two years, we cannot have a time frame that is far from that. “

Full disclosure

Minority House aide and ACT teacher representative Francia Castro said the government should fully disclose why it chose to insure 25 million doses of the vaccine made by Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese company. He said the Chinese vaccine had a lower efficacy rate than the vaccine made by Pfizer or Moderna, another American pharmaceutical company.

“People should know how the Duterte administration came to the conclusion that the Sinovac vaccine would be the best for the Filipino people despite being more expensive and the trials have not yet completed,” he said. —WITH REPORTING FROM JULIE M. AURELIO

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