The Department of Health (DOH) urged the public to temper expectations on a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which is said to 90% effective.
“Hindi naman kailangang matakot sa COVID-19. Ang kailangan natin maging laging vigilant, laging handa, laging cautious and aware, laging sumusunod sa minimum health standards (washing of hands, physical distancing, ban on mass gathering),” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online briefing.
“Itong bakuna ng Pfizer ay napaka-encouraging po, but we should temper our expectations and remain grounded on the reality na ginagawa pa lang ito,” Vergeire added.
Meanwhile, the Philippine government is unlikely to approve COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use if they are locally tested, Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Secretary Fortunato de la Peña said on Tuesday.
“Maybe it’s the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that can decide on that … I doubt whether we will follow the emergency approvals [granted overseas] if the trials were not done here,” he told a news briefing.
The DOST chief is responding to the announcement of US pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. that it would seek emergency use authorization from the US FDA for its COVID-19 vaccine developed with German drugmaker BioNTech.
DOH to public: Temper expectations on Pfizer vaccine
“First, if [Pfizer] will conduct clinical trials here, the data gathered will pass through our vaccine expert panel, and it will be verified by it. Because the 90 percent that they announced, they were the ones that did the announcement. We don’t know the details yet. We don’t know the data supporting it. If there are clinical trials here, we can verify it,” DOST Secretary said.
The Duterte administration only allocated P2.5 billion for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines under its proposed 2021 national budget.
DOH has earlier said the amount is not enough, as 12.9 billion is needed to provide vaccines enough to immunize at least 20 million of the 110 million Filipinos.
“Hindi na talaga nakakatakot ang COVID. But sa ngayon, magbili ka mahal. But as I have promised, gastos ng gobyerno itong bakuna para sa lahat ng Pilipino. Kaya umpisahan natin sa mga mahirap,” Duterte said during his Tuesday night address.