MANILA, Philippines — Vaccine screening authorities in the Philippines will look into reports alleging that Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech has a record of bribing drug regulators, the Department of Health said Wednesday.
The Washington Post reported that court records showed that Sinovac’s CEO bribed China’s drug regulator to expedite approvals for their SARS vaccine in 2003 and swine flu vaccine in 2009. The firm acknowledged the bribery case involving its CEO but said he cooperated with prosecutors and was not charged.
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The report, however, noted there is no evidence that any of Sinovac’s products involved in bribery cases were faulty. But experts interviewed by the Washington Post said the company’s history of bribery “casts a long shadow of doubt” over its vaccine claims.
In a briefing, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the department is aware of the report. He said the country’s vaccine screening authorities will validate and investigate the allegation.
“This will form part of the work of the vaccine experts panel. They will assess the veracity first and foremost of such a report to know if there is some truth to it,” Duque said.
“If true, then it’s up to the vaccine experts panel to include this in their final report and also the Food and Drug Administration. There is also the Single Joint Ethics Review Board to ensure we won’t fall victims to these questionable transactions if it really happened,” he added.
“CoronaVac”—the coronavirus vaccine developed by Sinovac—may be the first vaccine to be rolled out in the country, inoculation czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said in an interview on ANC’s “Headstart.”
The Chinese pharmaceutical firm also applied to conduct a large-scale clinical trial in the Philippines to assess the efficacy of its product.
The Philippine government is eyeing to vaccinate around 24.7 million Filipinos in the first part of the immunization program against COVID-19.
Some 1.76 million health workers would be first in the list of priority beneficiaries for COVID-19 vaccination. Medical frontliners would be followed senior citizens, indigent Filipinos and uniformed personnel.
Sinovac has sent Indonesia—the country with the worst COVID-19 outbreak in Southeast Asia—1.2 million doses of its vaccine. Another 1.8 million doses are expected to be delivered in January.
Brazil's Sao Paulo state said it would begin its vaccination program using Sinovac's vaccine next month.