Human challenge will not be adopted in the Philippines as a form of study on the efficacy of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines, an official from the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) assured.
Dr. Jaime Montoya, Executive Director of the DoST - Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD), said that no Ethics Review Board in the Philippines will approve this during the virtual press conference of the Sub-Technical Working Group on Vaccine Development Wednesday.
Human challenge refers to the process of administering the virus to someone who was given the vaccine to immediately test its effectiveness.
"Merong pagkakataon na merong human challenge na magbibigay ka ng bakuna tapos iinfect mo. Madalas ginagawa iyon sa pre-clinical trials sa mga animals, guinea pigs. Ginagawa 'yun para makasiguro na nakakatulong talaga 'yung bakuna (There are instances that human challenge is done; you give the vaccine then you will infect. Most of the time this is done during pre-clinical trials on animals or guinea pigs. It is done to ensure that the vaccine does help)," said Dr. Lulu Bravo, Executive Director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination.
"Sa Pilipinas hindi natin ipahihintulot 'yung ganoong pamamaraan ng pag-aaral dahil unang-una that is a violation of rights ng tao na kahit siya ay pumayag pa alam naman natin na walang gamot sa COVID-19 sa ngayon at para bigyan mo siya ng danger o posibilidad na magkaroon ng sakit kung hindi epektibo 'yung bakuna ay delikado at hindi tama (In the Philippines we will not allow this way of study because first of all it is a violation of rights of a person even if he will allow it. We all know that there is still no cure for COVID-19 and to give him the risk of being infected is if the vaccine is not effective is dangerous and wrong," Montoya said.
Bravo recalled that human challenge was done before when testing malaria vaccines.
Montoya clarified that vaccines are given to people who are healthy and not sick. It is administered in order to immunize the person from a certain virus or disease.
He reminded the public that the vaccine is not a cure for COVID-19.
"Ang gamot binibigay ito kapag may sakit ka, binibigyan ka, gagaling ka. Ito wala kang sakit. So kailangan walang sakit ang bibigyan ng bakuna. At usually ginagawa ito sa mga lugar na may transmission na tinatawag o yung maraming kaso ng COVID (Medicines are given to people who are sick, to cure them. In the case of vaccines, people need to be healthy. Usually this is done in places with transmission or high cases of COVID-19)," Montoya said.
He said that this is done to know if a person comes in contact or becomes exposed to a transmittable virus, he will not get sick because he was vaccinated.
He added that the vaccine stimulates or strengthens the immune system to fight the infection.