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Coronavac’s effectiveness was below 90%, according to Jean Gorinchteyn, Secretary of Health of São Paulo. The statement was made in an interview with CBN radio, on the afternoon of Thursday (24).
Also on Thursday, the Turkish government announced that preliminary results of tests carried out in the country, with just over 1,300 volunteers, indicated an efficiency of 91.2%.
According to Gorinchteyn, Sinovac observed differences between the efficiencies in the different countries where the tests were carried out, with Brazil presenting a lower data. Therefore, the pharmacist wanted to review the data.
The efficacy data in Brazil should have been published on Wednesday (23), but the disclosure has been delayed.
The secretary said that the effectiveness of the vaccine observed in the study carried out in Brazil with 13 thousand people must be announced within 15 days.
It was no surprise to the secretary that Coronavac was less than 90% effective, considering that it is produced with inactivated virus (Sars-CoV-2), a less immunogenic vaccine platform.
“They produce less protection. The flu vaccine ranges from 40% to 80% in certain groups,” Gorinchteyn said. “We know that the effectiveness would never reach 90%. But what we did not imagine is that the company wanted a singularity, a very close result in all countries.”
In any case, the secretary reaffirmed the importance of the vaccine being more than 50% effective (which he claims to be the case), to cause a reduction in the number of deaths.
“The only way that we will have to change that is to have a vaccine that is effective,” Gorinchteyn said of the pandemic.
Another important factor, mentioned on Wednesday (23) by Dimas Covas, director of the Butantan Institute, is the fact that among all the volunteers who received the vaccine in Brazil, none had severe Covid-19.
Even with the postponement of the disclosure, the secretary said that plans to start vaccination on January 25, in São Paulo, remain, initially for health professionals, the elderly, indigenous people and residents of long-term institutions.
Gorinchteyn also said that he hopes Coronavac will be a vaccine that is part of the national immunization plan.
