DOH to produce RP-made vaccines

The Department of Health (DOH) is expecting to come up this year with locally made vaccines for rabies and hepatitis and bacillus-calmette-guerin (BCG), a combination of drugs against tuberculosis.

Health Undersecretary Dr. Jade del Mundo said urine-based diagnostic tests for schistosoma infection are also being developed at the laboratories of the DOH-run Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Alabang.

Del Mundo said planning and researches for the needed medical supplies started in 2000 and RITM is now in the process of developing them.

"We hope to market them by September of this year. This will generate savings for us because we may no longer have to import vaccines (and other needs)," he said in an interview.

By producing these vaccines locally, the DOH expects to save at least 50 percent of the budget earmarked for the importation of supplies.

Del Mundo said RITM is developing rabies immuno globuline vaccine, which would strengthen the immunity of a person bitten by a dog.

Experts are extracting rabies virus and injecting them into a horse that will then produce vaccines which would be processed.

The diagnostic tests being produced for schistosoma or blood flukes, can be applied using the urine of an infected person. At present, the tests being done are based on the blood samples taken from victims.

For hepatitis B, the RITM is manufacturing recombivant vaccines, which are created by utilizing bacteria or yeast to produce large quantities of a single viral or bacterial protein.

The protein is then processed and injected into the patient, enabling the immune system to develop antibodies.

Del Mundo said the materials being used for the production are mostly imported but they are purified for local production.