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A test person died during the study of a corona vaccine by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in Brazil. This was confirmed by the Brazilian health surveillance authority, Anvisa, to the German press agency on Wednesday. The Brazilian media had previously reported on it. The British-Swedish company had developed the possible vaccine in collaboration with the University of Oxford. According to its own information, Anvisa had already been informed of this on Monday. The recommendation is to continue testing. The case is currently under review and data on the volunteers must be kept confidential.
According to the television station “CNN Brasil”, the deceased is a 28-year-old man from Rio de Janeiro who died of complications related to Covid-19. The Brazilian newspaper “O Globo” reported, citing sources who did not want to be identified for legal reasons, that the volunteer in question had not received the vaccine but a placebo. This was also reported by the Reuters news agency. Initially, neither the laboratory nor the test centers nor Anvisa officially commented on this issue.
The University of Oxford confirmed that it would continue testing. In a statement, the university stated that after careful evaluation, “there were no concerns about the safety of the clinical trial.” Citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that the study would not continue if the deceased had received the possible vaccine.
AstraZeneca had to suspend the study in September
AstraZeneca temporarily halted the clinical trial of its promising corona vaccine in September, apparently not for the first time. Until then, the AZD1222 vaccine was one of the promising candidates among potential corona vaccines. If the death of the volunteer were related to the vaccine, it would be a severe blow to the project.
The vaccine is currently under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in an ongoing review process. In this process, clinical trial data is continuously submitted and evaluated. The EU has already signed a framework agreement with AstraZeneca for the delivery of vaccination doses.
