President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has expressed optimism over news that clinical trials for the development of COVID-19 vaccines.

We expect involvement in the vaccine clinical trials by the last quarter of 2020 with the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) taking a lead role. The DOST has been tasked to provide our collaborating organizations with the Department of Health, World Health Organization and Food and Drug Administration Philippines guidelines on vaccine clinical trials; to identify the sites, the local institutions and the Filipino researchers who will be involved in the collaborative trials; to assist local participating institutions in their proposals and budgets; to obtain Ethics Board approvals; and to formalize the agreements.

The President wants to save the life of each and every Filipino.; and thus places great interest to these clinical trials.