Pfizer study to vaccinate an entire Brazilian city against COVID-19

BRASILIA, Oct.6 (Reuters) – Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) will study the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine by vaccinating the entire population over the age of 12 in a city in southern Brazil, announced Wednesday the company.

The study will be carried out in Toledo, a population of 143,000, in the west of the state of Parana, in collaboration with Brazil’s national immunization program, local health authorities, a hospital and a federal university.

Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with its German partner BioNTech SE, said the aim was to study the transmission of the coronavirus in a “real world scenario” after the population has been vaccinated.

“The initiative is the first and only of its kind to be undertaken in conjunction with the pharmaceutical company in a developing country,” said Pfizer.

A similar study was carried out by the Butantan Institute, one of Brazil’s main biomedical research centers, in the small town of Serrana, in the state of Sao Paulo. This test tested the CoronaVac shot developed by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech Ltd (SVA.O).

In May, Butantan said mass vaccination had reduced COVID-19 deaths by 95% in the city with a population of 45,644. The institute plans to expand the study for a third dose.

“Here we believe in science and we deplore the nearly 600,000 deaths from COVID-19 in Brazil,” Toledo Mayor Beto Lunitti said at a press conference announcing the Pfizer study.

There is little anti-vaccine resistance in Toledo, where 98% of the population has received a first dose, mainly of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine. AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) and Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine have also been used there, City Health Secretary Gabriela Kucharski said, adding that 56% are fully vaccinated.

Regis Goulart, a researcher at Moinhos de Vento Hospital in Porto Alegre participating in the study, said his goal was to validate the actual efficacy and safety of the vaccine seen in clinical trials.

The observational study will also provide the opportunity to perform long-term surveillance of participants for up to one year, helping to answer lingering questions such as the duration of vaccine protection against COVID-19 and new variants of the vaccine. virus, Goulart said.

Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Jason Neely, Mark Porter and Bill Berkrot

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