Duque washes hands of delay in Philippine access to Pfizer vaccine

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Thursday defended himself anew from accusation that he cost the country's early access to the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer.

Interviewed on ANC, Duque said the required confidentiality disclosure agreement (CDA) with Pfizer was originally intended to be signed by the Office of President (OP) and not by the Department of Health (DOH). He said Pfizer wanted the OP, through the Office of the Executive Secretary (ES), to sign the CDA.

“August 11, Pfizer sent a draft, 'yun na 'yung CDA. But that draft was meant to be signed by the Office of the ES on behalf of all government agencies,” he said.

“That would have spared Pfizer from signing a confidentiality agreement with many other government agencies, so isa na lang dapat,” he added.

On September 24, however, the ES advised that the DOH will be the signatory of the CDA after “repeated reviews” from concerned agencies, according to Duque.

He said the DOH cannot sign on behalf of the whole government, adding this is why the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. had signed the CDA separately.

Duque signed the CDA on October 20, while DOST and Galvez in November.

“I have the chronology of events, so that this is all documented. There's no such thing that I did not act quick enough,” Duque said.

“When you go through a process, you cannot just be hurrying up things just like that. You have to be prudent and cautious especially because you are talking about a novel vaccine,” he added.

Duque said they coordinated with Pfizer regarding revisions in some provisions of the CDA that he described as "one-sided."

“hindi ito simpleng parang gagawa ka lang ng dokumento,” he said.

According to Duque, Pfizer on June 24 sent an overview of the candidate vaccine against COVID-19 that it was developing. Through its pharmaceutical division, the DOH on June 29 referred the proposal to the DOST - Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, which is mandated to evaluate COVID-19 vaccines.

On August 6, the DOH sent a letter to Pfizer reiterating that its vaccine has to go under the evaluation of the DOST.

Duque said in a meeting with Pfizer on August 7, DOH officers asked the drug manufacturer about its utilization of new mRNA technology on its COVID-19 candidate vaccines. Duque said Pfizer responded that other countries used the new technology for HIV/AIDS.

Duque said DOH has no experience with this technology.

After receiving the draft of the CDA on August 11, the DOH endorsed to the legal service the comments concurred in by technical offices on August 26.

On September 4, officers from the DOH and DOST as well as ES Salvador Medialdea had a meeting with Pfizer to give updates on its vaccine development.

Duque received the revised CDA with the revision from the Office of ES on September 14.

On September 24, the ES informed that the DOH will be the signatory in the CDA with Pfizer.

Duque on September 25 replied that the Philippine government will have an alignment meeting with Pfizer, since he, and not Medialdea, is set to sign the CDA.

The Health Secretary signed the CDA three weeks after the advice of the ES that the DOH will be the signatory in the document. --KBK, GMA News