Brazil has the second deadliest outbreak of coronavirus. (Figurative)
Brazilian health authority Anvisa said on Wednesday that a volunteer in a clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford died, claiming it had received data from an investigation into the matter.
The regulator said testing of the vaccine would continue after the volunteer’s death. He did not provide further details, citing the medical confidentiality of those involved in the trials.
The Federal University of Sao Paulo, which is helping coordinate phase 3 clinical trials in Brazil, said separately that the volunteer was Brazilian, but did not say where the person lived.
Shares of AstraZeneca turned negative and fell 1.7%.
The federal government already has plans to purchase the vaccine from the United Kingdom and produce it at its FioCruz biomedical research center in Rio de Janeiro, while the Butantan Institute research center at the São Paulo state research center is testing a vaccine from the competition from China Sinovac.
Brazil has the second deadliest outbreak of coronavirus, with more than 154,000 deaths from COVID-19, only after the United States. It is the third worst outbreak in terms of cases, with more than 5.2 million infected, after the United States and India.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed)
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