The recent development of vaccines is proof of science's crucial role in the fight against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), an official of the Department of Science and Technology said.
DOST Undersecretary for Research and Development Rowena Cristina Guevara, chair of the Task Group on Vaccine Evaluation and Selection, made the statement following the issuance of an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
"Having a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine ready for deployment to the Filipino people at a time where no available treatment has yet been developed provides us a long-term solution and a higher chance of successfully defeating the virus," she said.
"This milestone is another proof that science, despite the challenge of compressing to compress into months a process that usually takes a decade or more to complete, is pivotal in the fight against an unprecedented public health emergency which has already claimed millions of lives globally, and is still affecting millions more in so many aspects worldwide, including the Philippines," she added.
Under the EUA, the FDA may allow the use of unapproved medical products in an emergency situation to treat or prevent life-threatening diseases when certain statutory criteria have been met.
Guevera mentioned that "While this is not yet a Certificate of Product Registration (CPR) or a marketing authorization, we are confident that the principles of science and regulatory reliance were adopted by our Filipino scientific experts in the process of evaluating the available safety and effectiveness data of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine."
"This significant step strengthens the commitment of the Department of Science and Technology’s (DoST) commitment, as part of the NTF COVID-19 Task Group on Vaccine Evaluation and Selection (VES), to provide Filipinos the best scientific and innovative solutions to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic," she added.