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COVID-19 Weekly Update: First COVID-19 Vaccine in the Philippines to have last clinical trial by Oct

Aug 22, 2020
2 min read

by Aniela Bautista

With the recent approval of the first COVID-19 vaccine by Russia President Vladimir Putin, the clinical trial of the Russia-developed vaccine in the Philippines is set to be completed from October 2020 to March 2021 and to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by April 2021.

The vaccine was approved on Wednesday, Aug. 11 and was named Sputnik V.

In a press briefing held last Aug. 12, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that the vaccine will have a panel review on the results of the first 2 clinical trials by September this year, and there will be a simultaneous clinical trial phase 3 with Russia by October 2020 up to March 2021.

“Mula Oktubre naman po hanggang Marso ng susunod na taon ay magkakaroon ng clinical trial phase 3. Simultaneous po iyan sa Russia at sa Pilipinas. (We will start phase 3 of the clinical trial from October to March of next year. The Philippines will have it simultaneously with Russia),” Roque explained.

Meanwhile, in an interview with ABS-CBN last Aug. 12, Eric Domingo, FDA General Director, said that before conducting a clinical trial in the Philippines, there should be first an approval from the FDA.

“We also have some fillers from some developers of vaccines to conduct phase 3 clinical trials here. So if that’s the root that they will come in, they will have to apply for approval for phase 3 clinical trial,” Domingo said.

Though the vaccine is still undergoing clinical trials, Duterte said he is confident that the Russia-developed vaccine is effective and will be ready by December.

As of Aug. 13, there are already a total of 147,526 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Philippines.