Many Filipinos are among the thousands who volunteered for the Phase III trials of a COVID-19 vaccine in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi said. The tests are being undertaken by the Group 42 (G42) healthcare station at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center, which has 180 Filipino nurses and one doctor involved in the vaccine tests.
Philippine Ambassador to UAE Hjayceelyn Quintana expressed pride at the participation of both the Filipino medical frontliners and the Filipino volunteers among the 15,000 of various nationalities who have been part of the Phase III trials since July, 2020.
The Phase III trials in Abu Dhabi are for a vaccine being developed by the Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinopharm. Another Chinese firm, Sinovac, is conducting its Phase III trials in Brazil. Still another Chinese firm CanSino Biologics is conducing its tests in the UK, Brazil, and South Africa.
There are three other vaccines which have entered Phase III trials – one produced by Moderna in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States; one by the University of Oxford and drugmaker Astra Zeneca in Cambridge, United Kingdom; and one by biotech company BioNTech of Mainz, Germany, in collaboration with drug firm Pfizer of New York City.
Russia had earlier announced it had approved its vaccine “Sputnik V,” which it will administer to its teachers and health workers in October, even if it has not yet undergone Phase III trials. This is the vaccine offered to the Philippines, with President Duterte himself offering to take the vaccine.
It is the Chinese, UK, US, and German vaccines that are now well into the final Phase III trials, each of which requires 20,000 to 40,000 people, split into control and test groups, and then followed closely for months to ensure that the vaccine is both effective and safe.
The Phase III tests of the various vaccines should be completed by December and in the succeeding months in 2021, after which the various countries will give their approval and the mass vaccinations will begin around the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been raging for eight months now since it emerged in China, with 24,337,005 confirmed cases and 829,686 deaths globally as of August 27, according to the World Health Organization. With all these researches and all these tests, we will soon have the vaccines that will finally put a stop to it.