2 pharma int'l companies will conduct Covid-19 field trial in Cavite

By Raadee Sausa August 13, 2020 IMUS, Cavite - Two pharmaceutical companies from the UK and US will conduct a field trial for corona...

By Raadee Sausa
August 13, 2020






IMUS, Cavite - Two pharmaceutical companies from the UK and US will conduct a field trial for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine in the province of Cavite, a lawmaker said on August 13.

“Cavite will soon be under the Phase 3 field trial of two known pharmaceutical giants. The study involves over 10,000 volunteer recipients of the experimental vaccine,” Gov. Jonvic Remulla of Cavite said on his Facebook.





The two pharma companies are AstraZeneca & University of Oxford in UK and Moderna from US.

AstraZeneca started its trials for its ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine or MenACWY vaccine on March 1, 2020.





While Moderna’s investigational vaccine called mRNA-1273 is considered one of the leading candidates among candidate vaccines, according to the US National Library of Medicine website.

The US National Institute of Health, citing an August 5 research of London-based scientific journal Nature, said Moderna’s vaccine showed promise in its mouse trials.





Moreover, under the field trial, 5,000 volunteers will get the vaccine while the other 5,000 will get placebo medication as part of the standard protocol.

"This is also part of the 100,000-sample size which is part of the third level of trials to see the vaccine’s effectivity,” the governor added.

“This will undergo intense scrutiny with the scientific community to determine its validity and efficacy. Only then will the vaccine be made available to the public.”

Remulla, however, expressed his concern over the news of Russia launching a COVID-19 vaccine.

“I have nothing against the Russians nor am I connected to any preferred country or vaccine manufacturer. I do not stand to gain on this but forgive me if my primary interest is to safeguard the health and safety of my constituents in Cavite. As far as I know, the Russian data is unavailable; their methodology is not open; and its efficacy has not been subject to a review and analysis,” he added.

The lawmaker appealed to the Department of Health to “safeguard the process of review, approval, and appropriation of the COVID-19 vaccine.”

According to data compiled by the Cavite Provincial Information and Community Affairs Department, the province has recorded 2,370 cases as of August 11.