Brazil also resumes clinical trials of the ‘corona vaccine’

Clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford in the UK, which were temporarily suspended due to the discovery of an unknown disease, will resume in the UK and Brazil.

According to the New York Times (NYT) and others on the 12th (local time), multinational pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Oxford announced that they will resume clinical trials with approval from the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) by security. Previously, AstraZeneca temporarily suspended clinical trials in the UK, as well as other regions, on Day 8 due to concerns about potential side effects when a disease of unknown cause was discovered in one of the UK clinical trial participants.

AstraZeneca’s and Oxford University’s vaccines, which were evaluated as the most advanced vaccines in development in the world, are in phase 2 clinical trials in the UK and India, and phase 3 clinical trials in Brazil, South Africa and more than 60 cities in the United States. Done. According to Oxford, around 18,000 people have participated in clinical trials so far and their goal is to complete the clinical trial with 30,000 people. Pascal Sorio AstraZeneca, CEO of AstraZeneca, said in an online meeting on the 10th that the vaccine would prove effective by the end of the year when clinical trials resume.

The Brazilian government also approved the resumption of phase 3 clinical trials of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The National Sanitation Office, under the Brazilian Ministry of Health, said it made this decision after receiving the medical information necessary for the resumption of AstraZeneca’s clinical trials.

The National Sanitation Office stressed that “we will carefully observe the process of the remaining phase 3 clinical trials and we will take the appropriate measures to guarantee safety immediately if serious side effects are found among applicants in Brazil.” Brazil signed a contract to buy 100 million doses of vaccine with AstraZeneca in late July and set a special budget of 2 billion reais (about 43 billion won) for it. It is reported that 30 million of the 100 million batches will be supplied between December this year and January next year, with the rest to be supplied in the first half of next year.

Brazil said it would keep the purchase contract with AstraZeneca even after the possibility of side effects arose. The Federal University of Sao Paulo, which participated in the clinical trial of the AstraZeneca vaccine, announced that the trial was ongoing with 5,000 volunteers, but there were no reports of serious side effects.

Reporter Josungmin [email protected]