The Philippine Department of Health (DOH) yesterday warned against the use of the Chinese-manufactured drug Carrimycin after a high-ranking military official claimed that it helped him recover from COVID-19.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a virtual presser that the drug is under trial in the United States, but results have yet to be released.
“Like other investigational therapies against COVID, the DOH does not recommend medicines like this until we don’t have a strong and multiple scientific evidence that these are safe and effective,” she said.
Vergeire said this after Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief General Felimon Santos Jr. sent a letter to the Chinese ambassador in Manila to ask for several boxes of Carrimycin, which he wanted to give to his friends who have been infected with the coronavirus.
“I believe that the said medicine helped in my recovery from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and I intend to give the said drug to my close friends who have also been infected,” Santos said in his letter, which bore the AFP’s official letterhead.
Santos was lambasted online for seeking such a favor due to tensions between Manila and Beijing over the disputed West Philippine Sea, but Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana defended the former and said he found nothing wrong with such a request.
Meanwhile, Food and Drug Administration chief Eric Domingo backed up Vergeire and said in an interview with news television show Unang Balita that Carrimycin is an unregistered drug in the Philippines.
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“Carrimycin is an investigational drug that’s being used in China. It’s undergoing clinical trials to see if it’s useful for [treating] COVID,” Domingo said.
However, he added that it is not included in the World Health Organization’s “solidarity” trial, where four experimental drugs are being tested in several countries to check for their effectiveness in treating COVID-19.
“[I]t is not included in the solidarity trial and no one has registered it in the Philippines. No one has also asked for a permit to import it [from China],” he added.
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