HEALTH Secretary Francisco Duque III denied on Thursday, December 17, allegations that the process for the procurement of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine from Pfizer was hampered due to his failure to act on it immediately.
“I have the chronology of events, so that this is all documented. There's no such thing that I did not act quick enough,” he said in a television interview.
“When you go through a process, you cannot just be hurrying up things just like that. You have to be prudent and cautious especially because you are talking about a novel vaccine,” he added.
Duque made the statement amid allegations that he failed to work on the necessary documentary requirement, particularly the Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement (CDA) vital for the procurement of the vaccines from Pfizer.
It was Senator Panfilo Lacson who revealed this, saying he had a meeting with Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez, who arranged the meeting between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. in which they discussed the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines.
"Thus, they could have secured the delivery of 10 million Pfizer vaccines as early as January next year, way ahead of Singapore but for the indifference of Sec. Duque who failed to work on the necessary documentary requirement, namely, the Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement (CDA), as he should have done," Lacson said in a statement.
Duque said that on June 24, Pfizer submitted an overview of their candidate vaccine against Covid-19 and it was referred to the Department of Science and Technology Philippine Council for Health Research and Development on June 29 for evaluation.
He added that on August 6, they sent a letter to Pfizer, reminding it that the vaccine has to be scrutinized by the said agency.
Duque said they also asked the company about the utilization of the new mRNA technology in their vaccine, in which the company has no experience about.
On August 11, he said Pfizer submitted a draft of the CDA but it was supposed to be signed by the Office of the President through the Office of the Executive Secretary (ES) and not by his department.
He said the ES should be the signatory in behalf of all the government agencies and to spare the company from signing a confidentiality agreement from each agency.
On September 4, the DOH, DOST officials and ES Salvador Medialdea met with Pfizer for the updates on its vaccine development while the revised CDA was received by Duque from ES on September 14.
On September 24, Duque said the ES advised that the signatory would be the DOH due to repeated review from concerned agencies.
But he said the DOH cannot do such, as it cannot represent the whole of the government, which he said was the same reason why Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. had signed the CDA separately.
Duque on September 25 replied that the Philippine government will have an alignment meeting with Pfizer, since he, and not Medialdea, is set to sign the CDA.
Duque said he signed the CDA on October 20, while DOST and Galvez did it in November.
He said he also asked the pharmaceutical company for several revisions on the CDA as some of its provisions were “one-sided.”
The Health secretary signed the CDA three weeks after the advice of the ES that the DOH will be the signatory in the document.
“Hindi ito simpleng parang gagawa ka lang ng dokumento (This is not as simple as creating a document),” he said.
Pfizer was the first company to release a Covid-19 vaccine in the United States. Its vaccine has 95 percent efficacy. (SunStar Philippines)