The Philippines authorities will undertake the trial to administer a mix of COVID-19 vaccination doses.
Sinovac jabs will be mixed with other vaccines for the mix-and-match trial of COVID-19 vaccines.
According to Science and Technology Undersecretary Rowena Guevara the dry run will start this week.
“So may dry run tayo ngayong linggo sa Muntinlupa tsaka Davao. Pag okay na yung dry run, saka talaga tayo mag-uumpisa,” she said.
“We have a dry run this week in Muntinlupa and Davao. Once that is okay, that’s when we’ll start the mix-and-match trial.)”
She added that the actual mix-and-match trial of vaccines will start towards the end of October or early November. The COVID-19 vaccine brands that will be mixed are those that have already been used in the immunization program.
“So ang mga imi-mix and match natin, yung mga locally available na ginagamit, dito sa ating National Immunization Program.”
“So pwedeng Sinovac, followed by Pfizer, Sinovac followed by Moderna and so on. So yun yung two-dose. Tapos merong version na three-dose na Sinovac-Sinovac tapos Pfizer, Sinovac-Sinovac tapos Moderna and so on.”
“(We’ll mix and match the locally available vaccines under the National Immunization Program. So we can use Sinovac, followed by Pfizer, or Sinovac followed by Moderna, and so on. There’s also a three-dose version wherein we may use Sinovac-Sinovac then Pfizer, Sinovac-Sinovac then Moderna and so on.)”
Only those who have not yet received any shot of the COVID-19 vaccine may participate in the trial whose results will be made available by December or January.
