Brazil, where the number of cases has exceeded 2 million, is one of the few places to test experimental coronavirus vaccines. It offers an unusual and attractive combination for research: a dizzying transmission rate, as well as internationally respected research centers and a public health system with experience in creating and distributing vaccines.
Both Phase 3 trials will include Brazil and are slated to involve at least 14,000 Brazilians. Advanced talks are also underway to launch three more vaccine trials in the country, according to Brazilian institutes consulted by CNN.
While Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly downplayed the virus as a “little flu” and has been criticized by experts for his unwillingness to implement containment measures across the country, the vaccine investigation he is conducting held now within the borders of Brazil could be a global game. it changes as the northern hemisphere prepares for a possible second wave in the winter.
Julio Barbosa, a 42-year-old nursing technician who has already lost five colleagues to the coronavirus, volunteered to participate in one of the mass vaccination trials, conducted by the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. Phase 3 testing will involve 50,000 volunteers worldwide.
After taking the injection, Barbosa says she had a mild fever and mild muscle pain that went away the next morning. In the trial, which mainly involves healthcare workers, half of the volunteers receive the test Covid-19 vaccine and the other half receive a meningitis vaccine, which can cause similar symptoms.
“This vaccine has to come out soon so that we can rest in the hospital. I have not stopped working in the last four months,” he told CNN after receiving an injection in a medical depot erected in Sao Paulo for trial.
Like the Oxford vaccine, CoronaVac will be administered primarily to healthcare professionals. Ricardo Palacios, medical director of research at Butantan, says the institute is also in “very advanced talks with two other vaccines under development” and in talks with dozens of pharmaceutical companies about Covid-19 research studies.
“All producers in the world will always look for a place where there is high transmission to attest to the effectiveness of the vaccine. But the infection rate is not enough. A country needs to have institutions that work with international scientific, regulatory and ethical protocols to carry out the tests, “Palacios told CNN.
Brazil is such a place, said Natalia Pasternak, a researcher at the vaccine development laboratory at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Sao Paulo (USP). She noted that Brazil has advanced logistics and manufacturing facilities compared to many other countries with unbridled Covid-19, such as Mexico.
“It is necessary to go to a country where the disease is circulating strongly and where there are institutes and qualified professionals to carry out the tests. Brazil offers these two crucial factors,” he said.
Preliminary trial results are expected to come out later this year, and should help shorten the time vaccines in the early stages of development will need to be developed.
Guarantee the access of Brazilians to future vaccines
The “number one goal” of the Brazilian health system is to have the freedom to produce a vaccine, interim health minister Eduardo Pazuello said last month. “We cannot stay outside,” he said.
As part of the testing agreements, Brazil hopes to be able to produce both vaccines at home if they prove to be effective, rather than buying them abroad, a crucial benefit for both the country and its neighbors.
Butantan, which produced 100 million flu vaccines last year, is preparing to produce a similar number of doses for Sinovac’s CoronaVac, if that vaccine is to be effective.
“To have a pre-existing structure already installed, it is necessary because Brazil will help make other vaccine agreements. Latin America has few manufacturing plants (for vaccines). Brazil will need to export the vaccine to other countries after assisting its public health system.” . Palacios, Butantan’s medical director, said.
The Biomanguinhos complex in Rio de Janeiro, owned by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, is also preparing to produce 70 million doses of the Oxford vaccine next year, hoping that ongoing negotiations between the Brazilian government, Oxford and AstraZeneca are completed by then.
Meanwhile, the results are yet to come from the Brazilian government’s own experiments with the massive distribution of hydroxychloroquine. Medical trials have not shown that hydroxychloroquine is effective as a coronavirus treatment. However, mayors, doctors, and health insurance companies in Brazil continue to distribute a “Covid kit,” consisting of hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin, the antiparasitic drug ivermectin, zinc, and vitamin C, in southern cities, Central-Western regions. and northeast of the country. With the exception of conflicting results on hydroxychloroquine, none of these treatments has been shown to help the coronavirus, either alone or in combination.
Last week, after his own diagnosis with Covid-19, Bolsonaro released a video praising the untested drug, swallowing a tablet with a smile on the camera. “It’s working for one more person. I trust hydroxychloroquine. How about you?” said the president.
More trials and more data in the future.
Soon, more Brazilians may soon be recruited as test subjects for other possible coronavirus-related treatments.
The Italian institute is currently completing Phase I of its Covid-19 vaccine. As the infection curve declined in Italy, it began to consider Brazil as a location for Phase II and III trials, according to Unifesp dean Soraya Smaili.
“We hope to start in late August. We will see where infections will be most prominent in the country to do volunteer screening, because infections appear to be on the decline in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo,” Smaili said.
For Barbosa, the nursing technician, developing a successful vaccine in Brazil would be a personal victory. “I’ve been dreaming about this. The first thing I would do would be to go to a samba and hug my friends. I would even lick the beer dripping on the counter,” he said.
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