CLARK FREEPORT – The Duterte administration has approved the establishment of a virology center at the New Clark City as part of its flagship programs.
“We have added a major health project, the Virology Science and Technology Institute of the Philippines, which will do primarily research for infectious diseases,” announced Presidential Adviser for Flagship Programs and Projects Vince Dizon at a joint Development Budget Coordination Committee press conference in Manila Thursday.
He cited the economic development cluster, as well as the National Economic and Development Authority Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure, to have already approved the inclusion of the project as part of the flagship program under the administration’s Build, Build, Build program.
The virology center is the first one to be approved in the health sector with more projects from the Department of Health that are pending for approval.
Dizon said the undertaking will be in cooperation with the Department of Science and Technology.
Last May, the DOST said it was seeking to establish a virology institute in preparation for another pandemic “because what we are now experiencing globally can occur again in the future.”
“The development of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics requires very good research on viruses.[Hence] it is very important to keep a virus gene bank, virus genome laboratory and virus reference laboratory,” DOST said in a press statement.
It noted that the absence in the country of a “research and development facility that could pave the way for studies on viruses that attack humans, animals and crops such as abaca, papaya, mango and banana.”
DOST Secretary Fortunato Dela Pena said the proposed virology institute in New Clark City will focus on “vector/reservoir transmission, viral ecology, clinical virology, pathogenesis, pathophysiology, and host immune response to viral pathogens in strategic partnerships with some of the world’s leading scientists, virology centers, and institutes.”
Dizon said the New Clark City made the ideal site of the virology center: “Resiliency was the major characteristic that we wanted in the New Clark City to become, and the pandemic just highlighted that. And the use of facilities over the past couple of months in major response efforts is our testament through the importance of forward-looking planning and focus on resiliency.”
The New Clark City is under the Bases Conversion and Development Authority where Dizon is president and chief executive officer. — With PNA report
