The Department of Foreign Affairs, through its foreign service posts, has initiated coordination between international partners and the Philippine government on vaccine developments.
The DFA said this is in line with government efforts to ensure that Filipinos would have access to viable Covid-19 vaccines once available.
The DFA has initiated coordination with some 36 countries across the globe.
“Information on vaccine developments and potential international partners were endorsed by the DFA to the Department of Science and Technology as the chair of the Sub-Technical Working Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Clinical Trials,” it said.
The Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases earlier approved Manila’s participation in clinical trials for five candidate Covid-19 vaccines, in collaboration with three developers from China and two from Taiwan.
The vaccine developers are China’s SinoPharma – Wuhan Institute and Beijing Biologicals Institute, Chinese Academy for Science – Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, and Sinovac Biotech, a and Taiwan’s Adimmune Corp. and Academia Sinica.
Earlier, Russian Ambassador to the Philippines Igor Khovaev also shared that the Philippines is keen to join the clinical trials led by Novosibirsk-based State Research Center for Virology and Biotechnology Vector.
“As the whole nation strives to heal as one, the DFA stands ready to support and complement efforts in response to the pandemic and eventually secure a viable vaccine for Covid-19 for Filipinos soon,” the DFA said. – PNA
April 25, 2024
