Drug firm AstraZeneca has withdrawn its application to conduct COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials in the country, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday.
Food and Drug Administration director general Eric Domingo said the UK-based pharmaceutical firm already has enough data to prove the efficacy of its vaccine and support its application for Emergency Use Authorization.
Domingo clarified that even with the withdrawal of its application for clinical trials in the Philippines, AstraZeneca can still supply the country with COVID-19 vaccines once these are approved for commercial use.
AstraZeneca, which applied for the conduct of Phase 3 clinical trials in the Philippines, became the second vaccine developer to call off plans to hold trials in the country after Chinese firm Sinopharm.
The country earlier secured 2.6 million doses of AstraZeneca’s candidate vaccine through an agreement with the government and the private sector.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health said there will be at least six cold storage facilities for COVID-19 vaccines in Metro Manila and three others across the country.
“There will be four cold storage rooms and two walk-in freezers in Metro Manila since it will be the central hub of all COVID-19 vaccines,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online forum.
The most number of COVID-19 cases are in Metro Manila, which will remain under general community quarantine — a protocol which allows limited access to public transport and scaled down operation for businesses — until the end of the year.
Vergeire, however, said there will also be vaccine storage hubs across the country.
“We need to have strategic areas in the country where we will have cold chain hubs. The vaccines will be delivered here before they get distributed to specific health facilities,” she said in a mix of English and Filipino.
“We are looking at Bicol, Cebu, Zamboanga… We’ll see where it is feasible and where it is efficient in terms of distributing the vaccines,” she said.
Vergeire did not say if these cold storage hubs would be capable of the ultra-low temperatures required by the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which have been shown to be 95 percent effective after human trials.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III earlier said that COVID-19 vaccines will be available in the country by March or April 2021 in a best-case scenario.
Duque on Friday urged hospitals to be ready to provide medicines to patients who would show allergic reactions after taking COVID-19 vaccines.
Duque said allergic reactions or what they call the adverse effect following immunization (AEFI) should be documented.
Health officials in the United Kingdom issued a warning on Wednesday that anyone with a history of allergic reactions should not have the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID shot for the time being after two people showed severe allergic reactions to the vaccine.
The COVID-19 vaccine may become available to the Philippines in the first or second quarter of next year, he said.
Meanwhile, the DOH said there was nothing wrong in Russia advising people not to drink alcohol before and after immunization against COVID-19.
“The warning of Russia to avoid drinking alcohol before and after receiving the vaccine, these are just precautionary measures,” Vergeire said.
Reuters recently reported that Russia had advised anyone taking its Sputnik V vaccine not to drink alcohol two weeks before being vaccinated and 42 days after that.
The Russian health official who gave the advice said alcohol can reduce the body’s ability to build immunity against COVID-19. This opinion was shared by Vergeire.
“We all know that when you drink alcohol, especially if you drink it too much, your immunity can be weakened. And when you take a vaccine, for it to work, your system must be robust, your immune system should be okay for your body to develop antibodies,” she said.
Vergeire said such precautions are “part of the uncertainty of what is happening right now with this pandemic.”
“I think people should heed this call to get a good effect from the vaccine. We should just avoid things that are bad for our health,” she said.
Russia’s Gamaleya Institute is among those applying for clinical trials in the Philippines. The government also recently said that the first vaccine for public use in the Philippines next year might be Gamaleya’s Sputnik V or China’s vaccine from Sinovac.
Meanwhile, Quezon City Rep. Alfred Vargas urged the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to start updating its list of indigents and senior citizens in preparation for the arrival of a COVID-19 vaccine.
“As we wait for the vaccination guidelines, I advise DSWD to start checking their master list of senior citizens and indigents. Duplications and errors should be removed. Accurate data is crucial in planning the vaccination program, so DSWD must ensure its master list is updated,” Vargas said.
The DOH has identified senior citizens and indigent Filipinos as among those who will be first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine once it becomes locally available next year.
Around 3.7 million indigent senior citizens will be second in line to get the vaccine, after frontline health workers. Another 5.6 million senior citizens and 12.9 million poor Filipinos make up the third and fourth priority.