San Pablo, ready to test his vaccine | Challenge to …

The Brazilian public laboratory Butantan Institute, from the state of San Pablo, has created its own vaccine against the coronavirus for which he requested the authorization of the regulatory body in order to start clinical trials in humans, announced the governor of São Paulo Joao doria, in an act without federal government authorities.

The vaccine, dubbed Butanvac, is presented at the worst time of the pandemic in Brazil, the two largest cities in the country, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, entering their deepest containment from this Friday until April 5, in an action called “superferiado” to avoid the movement of the people.

“It is a vaccine developed with all the knowledge of others. It is a 2.0 vaccine and 100% national, with national supplies and which can serve low and middle income countries,” said the director of the Institute. Butantan, Dimas Covas, during a press conference next to Doria. Eighty-five percent of the research is carried out by the Butantan Institute with the cooperation in trials of the governments of Vietnam and Thailand, which will be given priority if it is proven effective.

The Butantan Institute must receive authorization from the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) to start phases 1 and 2 of safety and compatibility in humans before doing a large scale test in phase 3, to start its application if it is effective.

The government of São Paulo, the richest state in Brazil and with 46 million inhabitants, pioneered the vaccination against the coronavirus by partnering with the Chinese laboratory Sinovac last June to acquire and develop the vaccine. against the CoronaVac coronavirus in its factory, the main one that is applied. today in Brazil.

The Butantan Institute has the largest public vaccine plant in the southern hemisphere and Its contract with China pitted Governor Doria against President Jair Bolsonaro, who last year repudiated the CoronaVac “because of its origin”, although the federal government subsequently acquired it to implement the plan. current vaccination.

Health collapse

Brazil this week topped 300,000 coronavirus deaths and is experiencing a health collapse, with hospitals unable to keep up with record demand for hospital patients for Covid-19.

Authorities attribute the explosion of cases to a more contagious mutation of the coronavirus first detected in the city of Manaus in northern Brazil, capital of the state of Amazonas. The mutation, already present in 15 countries or territories of the Americas, has increased the pressure on the health systems of Venezuela, Peru and Uruguay, among others.

Brazil has immunized its population since January 17 with the Chinese CoronaVac and Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccines. As of last Wednesday, some 17.8 million people had been vaccinated, of which 13.38 million (6.32 percent of the population) had received the first dose and 4.41 million (2.09 percent) had received both.