The government is negotiating to acquire 30 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine Covovax from India, which is now in the third stage of clinical trials, the Indian company's local partner said Sunday.
Covovax is the Indian version of the original vaccine formulated at the Serum Institute of India (SII) in collaboration with the US-based Novovax.
The country's vaccine czar, Carlito Galvez, met with Dr. Luningning Villa, medical director of SII's local procurement partner Faberco Life Sciences Friday.
Villa said if negotiations are successful, the vaccines could be available in the Philippines by the third quarter next year.
In an online briefing Saturday, Galvez said India will play a huge role in the distribution of vaccines in the Philippines, citing the good partnership between the two countries.
Covovax has undergone the initial phases of the clinical trials in Australia, South Africa, and India, with the third phase of trials currently being carried out in the United Kingdom with 15,000 subjects, and in the United States and Mexico with 30,000 subjects.
Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. lashed out at critics of the Duterte administration for questioning the efficacy of available COVID-19 vaccines, saying the government will not allow defective vaccines to be injected into its people.
Locsin said no country would distribute a faulty vaccine for fear of losing the trust of its own people and its credibility in the world.
"No aspiring great power will ever, ever distribute a vaccine that they do not believe sincerely is the best. Because if they did that and it failed out there, the reputation will be destroyed for the next two, three centuries," Locsin said in a virtual interview.
"The proof of that is that almost every vaccine developed by the great power is immediately deployed on their armed forces. Do you think that anybody is so stupid as to inject their own armed forces with a defective vaccine? We can expect a coup d'etat," the country’s top diplomat added.
Locsin said critics should not doubt the efficacy of any vaccine regardless of what country it comes from.
"You hear people who are disgruntled with the government, 'That vaccine is inferior!' Come on, grow up. These vaccines are as good as they can get," he said.
He said it was “criminally irresponsible” to put down any of the vaccines being considered.
Locsin earlier said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would try his best to help the Philippines secure a deal with Pfizer, even for just a fraction of the 10 million doses that were initially planned.
A quick deal for the January delivery of 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine fell through after Health Secretary Francisco Duque III failed to submit a required document, a confidential disclosure agreement (CDA) on time, Senator Panfilo Lacson said.
Locsin said he does not want to talk about the "bungled" Pfizer deal anymore because this would only make government critics happy.
"If you talk about it, the people who wish our country ill, the people who wish our people ill because they hate the government, they'd be so happy," he said. "Well I don't want to make them happy.”
In defending himself, Duque said the Department of Health cannot sign the CDA on behalf of the national government, prompting him, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. to sign separate CDAs.
“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,” Duque said, in an interview.
Malacañang also said it saw no major lapse on the part of Duque.
Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez said he could share the blame for the delay in the delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer, because he didn't press Duque to submit the CDA right away.
Romualdez said the CDA is needed to assure Pfizer that the government procuring vaccine doses would not share the technology behind its development.
Nevertheless, the envoy said the procurement of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is still on track, albeit delayed.
Over the weekend, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the government, through the Department of Health, can apply for an emergency use authorization (EUA) for COVID-19 drugs and vaccines.
FDA Director General Eric Domingo, in an interview on Double B sa News TV, said that so far, no COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers have applied for an EUA.
An EUA will reduce the processing time for the approval of the vaccines for local use from six months to 21 days, officials said earlier.
Domingo said manufacturers can apply for an EUA or the DOH, on behalf of the government.
“As the user of the vaccine in the public health program the Department of Health can apply for EUA,” he said.
A former government adviser on COVID-19 mitigation on Friday said Pfizer should register its COVID-19 vaccine with the FDA.
Dr. Tony Leachon, who used to be part of the national coronavirus inter-agency task force, had worked at Pfizer for nearly 20 years and assumed the role of medical director for regulatory affairs.
If the Pfizer vaccine gets the FDA nod in January, the country could still receive the supply of vaccines in July or August, Leachon said.
Leachon, who had called on Duque to "make the supreme sacrifice" and step down as DOH chief, said he believed Romualdez and Locsin's account of the Pfizer deal.
