DOH eyes five hospitals for Sinovac vaccine trials

The Department of Health is eyeing five hospitals for the Phase 3 of the clinical trials of anti-COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by China-based Sinovac Biotech, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Monday.

Vergeire said that these five proposed sites are the Philippine General Hospital, San Lazaro Hospital, Manila Doctors Hospital, the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine and Vicente Sotto Medical Center.

“Nasa Phase 2 na ito (Sinovac), at iyong Phase 3 ginagawa na sa ibang bansa katulad ng Brazil,” Vergeire said in an online briefing.

“May mga applications na [from local manufacturing companies] for Phase 3 clinical trials. When further details are available, we will inform you, pero ongoing na iyong submission ng final confidentiality disclosure agreement, at pinag-aaralan na ito ng vaccine experts panel natin,” she added.

The government is in talks with 16 other vaccine manufacturers around the world for access to an anti-COVID-19 vaccine, which is yet to be discovered months after the COVID-19 outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, China.

China has approved Sinovac's coronavirus vaccine candidate CoronaVac for emergency use as part of a program initiated in July to vaccinate high-risk groups such as medical staff, a person familiar with the matter said.

As of Sunday, August 30, 2020, the number of COVID-19 cases in the country was at 217,396. Of this number, 157,403 recovered while 3,520 died.

The number of active COVID-19 cases is at 56,473.

The COVID-19 pandemic has already left at least 27 million people unemployed based on the latest Social Weather Stations survey due to prohibitions on mass gathering and requirement of social distancing, which crippled if not closed various industries. —KBK, GMA News