Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda on Friday expressed optimism that the Senate will prioritize the passage of a bill establishing a virology institute to spearhead the country’s health defense system against pandemics.
Salceda, chair of the House committee on ways and means and principal author of the said bill, “since we approved it in the House early, there is enough time in the Senate to get it done this time around,” because the same bill was approved in the 18th Congress.
The House led by Speaker Martin G. Romualdez approved House Bill 6452 on third and final reading a week before Congress went on Christmas break on Dec. 16. The bill is a SONA priority of the Marcos administration.
“I am confident the Senate will get it done this time around since we started early in the administration,” Salceda said.
The institute will be a research center for the study of viruses, how the government can respond to them and how they can be used for different purposes.
The vaccine institute will create a state-of-the-art virology laboratory in New Clark City, which can create vaccines and serums and conduct research and projects on plant and animal viruses, on top of human viral diseases. He added the institute aims to be the country’s serum institute.
“India continues to be one of the world’s largest manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines even if it did not originate from them, because they have a serum institute. Vietnam solved ASF (African swine flu) first because their serum institute invented a vaccine early on,” the Bicolano lawmaker said
Salceda also stressed that the vaccine institute is not merely a health institute.
“The applications for virology are immense and broad. Food security, forest management, and the development of a strong pharmaceutical sector all benefit from a strong grasp of viruses.”
“These measures will make our health system more resilient. The capacity of a country to contain epidemics depends on its institutional capacity above everything else. If we have strong and resilient disease control and management institutions, we can weather global pandemic events more strongly.”
“We can’t predict the future, but institutional capacity anticipates a broader range of extreme events. It’s like bodybuilding for future pandemics.”
Salceda said that multilateral financing can easily be obtained once the Senate approves the measure. “We don’t have it in the 2023 budget yet, but multilaterals will be happy to finance it so we can hit the road.”
