ILOILO – Ilonggo nurse Ramon Francisco Sonico who got an initial shot in a clinical trial of a potential coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine has received his second dose.
The 32-year-old Santa Barbara resident is currently based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
He was among the 15,000 volunteers from 107 nations recently inoculated with an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (vero cell) developed by Sinopharm of China and approved by UAE’s Department of Health for clinical trial.
Sonico – a graduate of Central Philippine University (2008) – shared on social media that he completed on Tuesday his second dose of the vaccine currently in Phase III of clinical trials.
“Many of us, volunteers, came for our second dose. There was a long queue. The wait was long but we were all smiling,” said Sonico who has been working as a nurse in Abu Dhabi for five years now.
While UAE’s health authorities do not know yet the results of the first round of tests, the fact that it has continued and that the second round of injections are now being given is good news, according to Sonico.
“I was advised to monitor my body temperature for the next seven days like what I did during the first dose,” Sonico said.
He added that a doctor is also constantly monitoring his condition.
The monitoring, according to Sonico, would last for some three to six months after which he would undergo blood test and another swab on Sept. 13.
Sonico, in an earlier interview, disclosed he had not contracted COVID-19 since the pandemic started; if he tests positive for it, that means the vaccine he was inoculated with was a failure.
“Let’s hope and pray for the success of this vaccine so that everything will back to normal,” he said./PN
