Brazil completed vaccination of an entire city in unprecedented global experiment

Brazil concluded this Sunday a unpublished project worldwide, mass covid vaccination of the entire adult population in the same city. This seeks to analyze the capacity of the Chinese vaccine, CoronaVac, to reduce the rate of contagion of the coronavirus.

The chosen city was Serrana, located in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo, and with an estimated population of 45,000, similar to the city of Ibiza, Spain, some of which 300,000 people over 18 have been vaccinated.

The process of vaccination of so-called ‘Project S’ (Serrana Project) It started on February 17 and lasted four weeks. The last phase ended on Sunday.

The first results of the experiment will not be known until mid-May, as the immune response of CoronaVac will begin to be observed two weeks after the application of the second dose.

However, the outlook is already positive in Serrana, as no patient has been intubated in the city for 10 days. “We are already seeing in practice a significant decrease in the flow of patients to health centers, mainly severe cases. We still cannot make the link with vaccination, but here in Serrana, there has been this drop. We think it was due to the vaccination and that gives us hope for better days, ”said the mayor of the city, Léo Capitelli.

This optimism is shared by Guilherme Montanari, 39, married, father of a daughter and who has already taken two doses of Coronavac for two weeks. “It was a very positive experience, mainly for those of us between 39 and 40 years old, because the way the national immunization plan is implemented will delay the immunization of my age group for a long time in the country. It is therefore a unique opportunity, ”he commented.

Brazil is currently going through the worst phase of the pandemic, with more than 350,000 dead and 13.4 million infected. The conclusions of the project will be crucial for the future of the South American giant and for the whole world.

PROJECT S: ORIGIN AND EXPECTATIONS

Coronavac was developed by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac and is produced in Brazil by the Butantan Institute, one of the largest health research centers in Latin America, linked to the government of the state of Sao Paulo.

The Chinese vaccine was the first to be used in Brazil and among over 47 million vaccines against the covids that have been distributed so far throughout the country, 80% They are from Coronavac. The remaining percentage corresponds to vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

Butantan is the coordinator of “Project S”, described by researchers as “unprecedented” in the world, since the study will also measure the impacts that large-scale vaccination will have on the burden of the health system in the region. economy and in the movement of people.

Serrana was chosen for the study because it is a low-population city with high rates of covid-19 contagion. On February 16, on the eve of the start of the mass vaccination process, this town of only 45,000 inhabitants had 57 deaths and 2,499 confirmed cases of the virus.

To prevent residents of neighboring municipalities from “sneaking” into the project, a preliminary census was carried out to identify the target audience with whom the survey would be conducted.

The study also seeks to know the adverse effects of vaccination and the interaction of the vaccine with the Brazilian variant of covid, known in the scientific world as (P.1.) And one of the most contagious.

According to the mayor of Serrana, the investigation “will contribute to the confrontation of the pandemic throughout the world”. Vaccination is “the best way to defeat this invisible enemy that is the pandemic”added.

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