[ad_1]
SERRANA, Brazil – As Covid-19 raged across Brazil, killing nearly a quarter of a million people, high infection rates have made the country the ideal testing ground for vaccines.
Today, Brazil is using its misfortune to help answer one of the pandemic’s most pressing questions as millions of people are vaccinated around the world: Can a vaccinated person still transmit the virus?
As part of the first such experiment on a global scale, researchers on Wednesday launched a project to immunize the entire adult population of Serrana, a hard-hit suburban town of 45,000 in the state of São Paulo, before the rest of the country.
They say the results will help scientists around the world understand how quickly vaccines can curb the coronavirus pandemic. And vaccinating an entire city will counter Brazil’s growing anti-vax movement and demonstrate the wider benefits of mass vaccination, such as an expected rapid economic recovery with a swift reopening of Serrana.
“This will give us information on the percentage of people who need to be vaccinated to achieve collective immunity – no one knows yet,” said Marcos Borges, professor of medicine at the University of São Paulo in nearby Ribeirão Preto. , which directs the study.
[ad_2]
Source link