The World Health Organization (WHO) Solidarity Trial Vaccines is expected to be rolled out outside Metro Manila, especially in areas where there is low vaccination rate.

This was disclosed by lead investigators of the trial, Dr. Jodor A. Lim and Dr. Marissa M. Alejandria of the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila-Philippine General Hospital (PGH).

Lim said they were eyeing to enroll 15,000 to 20,000 Filipinos aged 16 and above to participate in the trial.

“Because of the very good vaccine rollout, we have to look for areas where the vaccination rate is not yet that high so we are moving out of the National Capital Region already,” he said during the WHO STV Public Announcement on Friday, Dec. 17.

“We have some limitations in terms of the areas that we are going to that is why we are moving out of the NCR already so that we can have participants.”

The enrolment of participants for the WHO STV started by end of September.

Lim said currently, they have eight sites actively enrolling participants. These include the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), Lung Center of the Philippines, and the Makati Medical Center (MMC).

“We have community sites like Camp Crame group, later on, we move on to Sampaloc area, St. Luke’s Medical Center and then to San Juan de Dios so we have now eight actively enrolling sites and we hope to add more sites,” he said.

He said Baguio General Hospital and areas in Southern Luzon were being eyed to be involved in the STV.

“We are looking at expanding more to some other sites. We are actively looking for LGUs who are more than willing to take us in,” he said.

“We are looking towards Laguna, Batangas, Cavite, those are the areas for expansion.”

Alejandria cited the need to open more sites outside Metro Manila to reach their target of enrolling 15,000 to 20,000 participants.

She said 5,000 participants have so far been enrolled in the trial.

“We were able to convince communities to participate in the trial. As we move out of Metro Manila, we expand to Northern Luzon, Southern Luzon, Cavite, Rizal, Bulacan. We hope that we will have participants who would be willing to contribute to science,” she said.

Alejandria cited that clinical trials are needed to identify the vaccines that can really be transmission blocking.

“We are not yet able to have herd immunity, there is no herd immunity yet with any of the vaccines, the vaccines with EUA approval. They are effective in preventing severe disease and death and not preventing infection. We are not yet able to establish herd immunity even if we are able to vaccinate,” she said.

“We still need to really do the clinical trials and to determine which vaccines can really be transmission blocking and as such we still have to continue to practice our personal protective measures, We do not have herd immunity yet at this time.”