Coronavirus: vaccine trials suspended in Brazil

The health authority of Brazil has suspended clinical trials of China’s covid-19 vaccine after a volunteer suffered “a serious incident”. As reported, the Brazilian Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) “decided to stop the clinical trial of the CoronaVac vaccine after a serious incident” on October 29.

The agency did not give details of what happened, but said these incidents could include death, potentially fatal side effects, severe disability, hospitalization and other “clinically significant events”.

While waiting for more details on what happened, Chinese laboratory Sinovac Biotech has defended the safety of its vaccine. “We are confident in the safety of the vaccine,” Sinovac said in a statement in which he said the incident in question was “unrelated” to the vaccine.

The public body that coordinates the vaccine trials in Brazil, the Butantan Institute, was “surprised” by the suspension of the trials.

The institute “is studying in detail what happened” and “is at the disposal of the Brazilian regulatory agency to provide any necessary clarification on any incident that may have arisen during clinical trials,” he said. he adds.

The CoronaVac embodies a political battle in Brazil between one of the country’s greatest defenders, the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, and his main political rival, President Jair Bolsonaro.

The São Paulo state government said in a statement that it “regrets learning of the decision from the press, rather than directly from Anvisa,” and was waiting with the Butantan Institute for more information on ” the real reasons for the suspension. “.

No room for the Chinese vaccine

On several occasions, Bolsonaro disqualified the Chinese vaccine and instead promoted the one developed by the University of Oxford with the British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.

Last month the president canceled an agreement to purchase 46 million doses of the Chinese vaccine that had been announced by its own Minister of Health. “The Brazilian people will not be anyone’s guinea pig,” said Bolsonario, who called the project “Joao Doria’s Chinese vaccine”.

A few hours before the announcement of the suspension of rehearsals, Doria had indicated that the first 120,000 doses of CoronaVac weren arrived in Sao Paulo on November 20. His state has reached an agreement with Sinovac to buy 46 million doses, six million produced in China and the rest in Sao Paulo.

“State government officials fear that Bolsonaro is using technical decisions to delay the immunization schedule for political reasons,” Sao Paulo’s Folha newspaper reported, citing Doria’s allies.

The CoronaVac setback came on the same day that US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced that its coronavirus vaccine was 90% effective.

The Pfizer and Sinovac vaccines are in phase 3 trials, the last before they get the green light or not from regulatory authorities. Both are being tested in Brazil, the country with the second highest number of deaths from covid-19 behind the United States, with more than 162,000 deaths.