Aiming to generate data on the efficacy of candidate vaccines against emerging variants of concern (VOCs) and determine the effective COVID-19 vaccines and doses that are suitable for the Filipino population, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Department of Health (DOH) and the University of the Philippines - Manila (UPM) officially launched the World Health Organization’s Solidarity Trial Vaccine (STV) in the country on 17 December 2021 via Zoom and Facebook live stream.

The clinical trial eyes to recruit a total of 15,000 Filipino volunteers from 20 identified sites and barangays with high COVID-19 attack rates across the National Capital Region (NCR). As of December 20,  2021, seven hospitals and two community-based sites have already conducted the recruitment activities with a total of 5,254 participants vaccinated with first dose and 3,142 participants already completed the two-dose schedule in the Philippines.

“The WHO-STV is a clinical trial, which aims to study the efficacy and safety of candidate vaccines. Continuing to participate in vaccine clinical trials remains of utmost importance, especially as the current global vaccine supply is still limited,” explains Chair of the Task Group on Vaccine Evaluation and Selection (TGVES) and DOST Undersecretary for Research and Development  Rowena Cristina Guevara on how the clinical trial is separate from the country’s ongoing vaccination program. 

Two of the four candidate vaccines is being initially studied: a spike adjuvanted vaccine developed by Medigen, and a DNA vaccine encoding the spike protein developed by Inovio, as identified by the WHO following the core protocol approved by the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA), DOST-convened Vaccine Expert Panel, and the Single Joint Research Ethics Board (SJREB). 

“Our ultimate goal in DOST-PCHRD, and in the Task Group on Vaccine Evaluation and Selection, is to ensure that before any candidate vaccine reaches our communities, it has already shown evidence that it is safe, effective, and suitable for human trials,” DOST-PCHRD Dr. Jaime C. Montoya says. “As we begin to implement the WHO Solidarity Trial Vaccines, we, especially our Philippine STV team, are in need of the united support and assistance of every Filipino in ensuring a smooth implementation of the clinical trials. In the end, what is equally important as scientific research is the spirit of unity and volunteerism among our Filipino communities,” he adds.

“Now that the vaccine trials are underway, we are hoping that the data we share with the other participants of the Solidarity Trials will contribute in finding more effective vaccines that can protect the Filipino people,” DOST Secretary Fortunato de la Peña says.

Led by the UPM-PGH, with support from the DOST and the DOH, the local clinical trial will serve as a contribution of the Philippines to the large-scale COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials headed by WHO. The trial has been launched in the Philippines, Mali and Colombia, while additional countries and vaccine candidates will follow shortly. 

Interim results of the local clinical trial may be available to the public by early 2022. 

Source: https://www.pchrd.dost.gov.ph/news/6737-dost-doh-and-upm-officially-launch-who-solidarity-trial-vaccine-in-ph 

The Department of Science and Technology - Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DOST-PCHRD) warns the public against the unauthorized use of the results of the Lagundi study on COVID-19 for marketing Lagundi products. 

The University of the Philippines - Manila (UPM), with support from the DOST-PCHRD, conducted the study which evaluated the efficacy and safety of the over-the-counter 600mg Lagundi syrup and tablet formulated through the National Integrated Research Program on Medicinal Plants (NIRPROMP) in treating mild symptoms of COVID-19.

The study showed that the FDA-approved Lagundi products can be safely used for the symptomatic treatment of mild COVID-19. If taken three (3) times a day, the products were found to be effective in decreasing mild COVID-19 symptoms, especially anosmia (loss of sense of smell), and in providing overall relief of discomfort from other symptoms. 

The results, however, cannot be used as basis for proving the efficacy and safety of using Lagundi against COVID-19 in any form or product other than the one used or tested during the trial. Clinical trials validate the efficacy and safety of specific formulations using a specified dose for use against a specific disease. Any product that has therapeutic claims would require successful clinical trials and approval from the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before marketing to the public.

“Our study only focused on evaluating the NIRPROMP formulation of the Lagundi syrup and tablet for mild COVID-19,” project leader of the Lagundi clinical trials Dr. Cecilia Maramba-Lazarte says. “Accordingly, we have not endorsed any other Lagundi product aside from these, and any other product claims separate from what we studied are not affiliated with the project team, nor  UP-Manila,” she added.

The DOST-PCHRD likewise reminds the public to be critical of misleading product claims. “The study showed that Lagundi may be  beneficial to mild cases of COVID-19,” DOST-PCHRD Executive Director Dr. Jaime C. Montoya says. “Despite this, we'd like to emphasize that the results of the clinical trials on Lagundi against COVID-19 cannot be utilized by any product other than the one used in the trials without the conduct of similar clinical trials. We encourage the public to be on the lookout for misleading product claims,” he added.

Source: https://www.pchrd.dost.gov.ph/news/6735-dost-pchrd-warns-against-the-unauthorized-use-of-the-results-of-lagundi-study-on-covid-19 

Strengthening case for natural origin.

(Image credit: BROKER/Franz Christoph Robiller via Getty Images)

Researchers have discovered coronaviruses lurking in Laotian bats that appear to be the closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, found to date, according to news reports.

In a new study, researchers from the Pasteur Institute in France and the University of Laos captured 645 bats from limestone caves in northern Laos and screened them for viruses related to SARS-CoV-2. They found three viruses — which they dubbed BANAL-52, BANAL-103 and BANAL-236 — that infected horseshoe bats and shared more than 95% of their overall genome with SARS-CoV-2.

One of the viruses, BANAL-52, was 96.8% identical to SARS-CoV-2, according to Nature News. That makes BANAL-52 more genetically similar to SARS-CoV-2 than any other known virus. Previously, the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2 was RaTG13, which was found in horseshoe bats in 2013 and shares 96.1% of its genome with SARS-CoV-2, Nature News reported.

What's more, all three of the newly discovered viruses are more similar to SARS-CoV-2 in a key part of their genome — called the receptor binding domain (RBD) — than other known viruses. The RBD is the part of the virus that allows it to bind to host cells. With SARS-CoV-2, the RBD binds to a receptor known as ACE2 on human cells, and the virus uses this receptor as a gateway into cells.

Critically, the new study found that BANAL-52, BANAL-103 and BANAL-236 can bind to ACE2 and use it to enter human cells. So far, other candidates proposed as ancestors of SARS-CoV-2 found in bats, including RaTG13, haven't been able to do this, the researchers said. The three viruses could bind to ACE2 about as well as early strains of SARS-CoV-2 found in Wuhan, they said.

The findings, which were posted to the preprint server Research Square on Sept. 17, add to the evidence that SARS-CoV-2 had a natural origin, rather than escaping from a lab.

The results show "that sequences very close to those of the early strains of SARS-CoV-2 ... exist in nature," the researchers wrote in their paper, which has yet to be peer-reviewed.

"The receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 looked unusual when it was first discovered because there were so few viruses to compare it to," Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney, who wasn't involved in the research, told Bloomberg. "Now that we are sampling more from nature, we are starting to find these closely related bits of gene sequence," Holmes said.

The authors say their findings support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 resulted from a recombination of viral sequences existing in horseshoe bats.

Still, even though the newly discovered viruses are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, all three viruses lack a sequence for what is known as the "furin cleavage site," which is seen in SARS-CoV-2 and aids the virus's entry into cells, according to Nature News. This means that in order to better understand the origins of SARS-CoV-2 further research is needed to show how and when the furin site was introduced.

The findings are currently being considered for publication in a Nature journal, Bloomberg reported.

Source:  https://www.livescience.com/closest-bat-virus-found-to-sars-cov2-covid  (Originally published on Live Science.)