MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines plans to release trials for a Russian coronavirus vaccine in October, and President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to be inoculated in May next year, a presidential spokesman said Thursday.
Duterte spokesman Harry Roque made the announcement a day after Filipino scientists met with representatives of the vaccine developer, the Gamaleya Research Center, to discuss essays and inoculation data.
Russia was on Tuesday the first country in the world to grant regulatory approval for a COVID-19 vaccine, which will be called “Sputnik V” in popularity for the Launch of the Soviet Union’s first global satellite.
But his resolve to grant approval before the trials are completed has raised considerations among some experts, who fear that it will put the national before safety.
Undersecretary of Health Maria Rosario Vergeire told Reuters that all clinical trials go through the regulatory process.
Phase 3 clinical trials in the Philippines are expected to run from October to March 2021, after an organization of vaccine experts completed its review of phase one and two Russian trials in September, Roque said at a press conference.
Duterte needs a vaccine and in July asked China to make the Philippines a priority if it developed one.
The president promised that the Philippines, which has suffered its biggest economic downturn in nearly three decades, would “return to normal” until December, even though it reported a record number of coronavirus infections since July.
The new coronavirus ignited more than 143,000 people and killed 2,404 in the Philippines. A strict blockade of recently reintroduced coronaviruses in and around the capital Manila is not expected to continue beyond August 18, the presidential spokesman said.
Reporting through Neil Jerome Morales and Karen Lema; Edited through Ed Davies
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