(BusinessWorld) The Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved clinical trials for combining coronavirus vaccine brands, an official from the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) said on Friday.
The regulator approved the study on Nov. 16 and has started screening applicants, DoST Undersecretary Rowena Cristina L. Guevara told a televised news briefing.
The mix-and-match trials would need 3,000 participants including Filipinos who got vaccinated with Coronavac from China as their first dose.
The dry run started last month with results of the study to be made available by the first quarter of next year.
More than 73 million coronavirus vaccines had been given out as of Nov. 18, with 32.9 million Filipinos having been fully vaccinated against the virus and 6,457 booster shots injected, according to data from an inter-agency task force.
Meanwhile, a House lawmaker has called on the task force to do away with RT-PCR tests for interzonal land, air and sea travel because it burdens fully vaccinated travelers.
Party-list Rep. Jose J. Teves, Jr. filed a House resolution asking the government to only require a negative antigen test result for traveling Filipinos who have been fully vaccinated. .. Read More
