Russia wants to partner with the Philippines in mass-producing a potential COVID-19 vaccine, its envoy to Manila said Wednesday.
“We are ready to share our technology… We want to cultivate a long-term partnership, which will be beneficial for both countries,” Russian Ambassador to the Philippines Igor Khovaev said in a virtual forum organized by the Philippine-Russian Business Assembly.
“Our final aim is to produce the Russian vaccine here in the Philippines,” Khovaev added of the move, seen to further promote closer bilateral relations between the two countries.
Russia’s coronavirus vaccine candidate, Sputnik V, had shown encouraging results in two small trials, according to data published in Britain’s prestigious medical journal, The Lancet.
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said Tuesday it had “voluntarily paused” a randomized clinical trial of its coronavirus vaccine in what it called a routine action after a volunteer developed an unexplained illness.
The company, which is developing the drug alongside the University of Oxford, is a frontrunner in the global race for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Also, a public health expert said the Philippines may only get the COVID-19 vaccine by the second quarter of 2021.
In an interview on dzMM Teleradyo, Dr. Jaime Montoya, executive director of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, doubted that a safe and effective vaccine against the respiratory illness could be ready for use within the year.
“Based on what we know and the available data, the Philippines probably won’t have a vaccine available by December this year,” said Montoya, when asked about President Rodrigo Duterte’s statement that a coronavirus vaccine could be made available by yearend.
“What we see happening, if we’re talking about the Philippines, is that the earliest we can get a vaccine approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is the second quarter of next year,” he said.
The Philippines currently has no approved treatments or vaccines for COVID-19, Montoya said.
The Sputnik vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute in coordination with the Russian defense ministry, is “safe, well tolerated, and does not cause serious adverse events in healthy adult volunteers,” the Lancet report showed.
“This publication itself is a testament to the safety of the vaccine… The Russian vaccine is 100 percent safe and effective,” Khovaev said.
The vaccine, named after the world’s first satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, will still undergo large-scale testing or Phase 3 clinical trial to assess its safety and efficacy.
The Philippines and Russia have been negotiating on holding possible Phase 3 clinical trials of Sputnik V, which the Palace earlier said could start in October.
Khovaev said the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) was still studying the results of Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the clinical trials.
“We are ready to launch the clinical trial as soon as possible. We are ready to move forward,” he added.
Khovaev said the DOST earlier committed 1,000 Filipino participants if the Phase 3 clinical trial of Sputnik V pushes through.
Drugmakers worldwide are racing to find cure to curb COVID-19, which has sickened more than 27 million people and killed over 890,000 since emerging in China.
Montoya said if such a vaccine can then become available for public use, the Philippine government can obtain some 20 percent of its total demand through COVAX.
COVAX, led by Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO), is a global initiative working with governments and manufacturers to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries.
Montoya estimated the prices of the COVID-19 vaccine to be between P500 to P1,000 per shot if approved.
Two doses of the vaccine could be given per person between 20 to 28 days apart, he said.
Montoya also assured the public that the government has already allocated funds to procure the vaccine once it becomes available.
Asked how much of the population should be vaccinated to ensure herd immunity, Montoya said at least 60 percent.
“If 60 percent of the population is immune to (coronavirus) or protected by vaccine, the transmissionof the virus would slow down,” he said. With AFP