The Philippines Health Department said that at least 100 COVID-19 patients in the country will be given the anti-flu drug Avigan from Japan, as part of a clinical trial in treating the highly contagious disease, , German press agency, dpa, reported on Wednesday.

The department was preparing a protocol to choose the patients to be included, said Under-Secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.

“We have the go signal to conduct the clinical trial in the coming days,” she said. “The Japanese government is providing supply for 100 patients. We already have the clearances from different institutions in the country.”

Inclusion in the trial will be voluntary, Vergeire added, saying, since this is a clinical trial, the informed consent of the patient should be there.

There are 9,684 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Philippines, including 637 deaths as of Tuesday, the department said.

Vergeire said experts stressed that the Philippines needs to step up its testing capacities to at least 15,000 COVID-19 tests per day to determine the actual state of the outbreak in the country.