Local researchers to conduct real-world study on COVID-19 jabs
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines will conduct a study that will look into the real-world effectiveness of vaccines against COVID-19, the Department of Science and Technology said Tuesday.
DOST Undersecretary Rowena Guevara said a P100-million project will follow vaccine recipients for a year to determine the effects of COVID-19 vaccines in a real-world setting.
“While the Department of Health is vaccinating people, we will select participants and monitor what happens to them after the vaccination for about a year or so,” Guevara said in Filipino during a briefing.
“It will answer questions on the effect of ethnicity [on vaccines]… Second, the most important question we want to answer is: what is the efficacy of these [vaccines] over time?” she added.
The DOST aims to begin the study in June. Around 1,000 participants are expected to take part in the research, although the figure is still subject to approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Guevara said researchers will study the vaccines available in the country by the time the project starts. Dr. Nina Berba, head of infectious disease control at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital, will lead the study.
READ: 3 more COVID-19 vaccine developers apply for clinical trials in Philippines
So far, only four brands are being used in the government’s vaccination drive: Sinovac Biotech, AstraZeneca, Gamaleya Research Institute and Pfizer-BioNTech.
The department will also study the possibility of pairing two different vaccine brands and the use of booster shots.
Only 949,939 people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 since the start of the inoculation campaign in March, while over 3.1 million have received their first dose.
The national government has so far secured two official deals for COVID-19 vaccine supplies in the Philippines, one with Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac and another with the Serum Institute of India.
Watch this space for bite-sized developments on the vaccines in the Philippines. (Main image by Markus Spiske via Unsplash)
Health Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire says the general population may now get their second booster jab.
"We're just waiting for the release of implementing guidelines, then we'll start rolling out our second booster for the general population," she says. — Gaea Katreena Cabico
Amid questions on vaccines being administered, the Department of Health assures the public all doses are safe and effective as the “process of extending shelf life goes through thorough stability studies.”
“The government ensures that every vaccine that is injected with an extended shelf life has gone through studies, and is still safe and effective against COVID-19,” it adds.
Government must increase vaccination capacity across the Philippines in anticipation of a surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant of the corona virus, Sen. Risa Hontiveros says.
She says local government units and the private sector can work together to put up more vaccination centers and deploy more vaccination teams to get more people inoculated against COVID-19.
"The active COVID cases have nearly doubled in three days. The positivity rate is almost four times the ceiling set by the World Health Organization. Huwag na nating hintayin na sobrang lumala pa ang sitwasyon bago tayo gumawa ng paraan para mapabilis ang ating pagbabakuna."
FDA chief Eric Domingo says that its agency has given emergency approval for the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.
The United States immunized around 900,000 children aged five-to-11 against Covid in the first week the Pfizer vaccine was authorized for them, a White House official says Wednesday.
Roughly 700,000 more have made appointments at pharmacies, White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients tells reporters.
"The program is just getting up to full strength," he says, adding most of the shots were given in the last couple of days alone. — AFP
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