[ad_1]
00:53
Gustavo Romero, professor at the University of Brasilia and physician coordinating tests for the Sinovac Biotech vaccine, shows the vaccine to journalists amid the COVID-19 pandemic at the University Hospital of Brasilia, Brazil, August 5, 2020. / CFP
Gustavo Romero, professor at the University of Brasilia and physician coordinating tests for the Sinovac Biotech vaccine, shows the vaccine to journalists amid the COVID-19 pandemic at the University Hospital of Brasilia, Brazil, August 5, 2020. / CFP
Clinical trials of CoronaVac, a coronavirus vaccine developed by the Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech, have “reached the efficacy threshold” required by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Brazilian institute in charge of its production and distribution.
The director of the Butantan Institute, Dimas Covas, said that the vaccine reached the efficacy threshold that allowed them to request an authorization for emergency use from the regulatory agency Anvisa in Brazil.
The Butantan Institute did not publish the results of those trials due to a clause in the Sinovac contract that prohibits doing so until all global clinical trials are completed.
In Brazil, 13,000 volunteers participated in the trials, which were also conducted in Turkey, Indonesia and China.
“Our entire program remains unchanged. Dosage production continues at our factory and the immunization campaign will begin as expected on January 25,” said Sao Paulo Health Secretary Jean Gorinchteyn.
The WHO efficacy threshold is 50 percent, but other labs, such as Pfizer and BioNTech, which are collaborating on a vaccine that has already been administered to thousands of people in the United States and Britain, have reached 90 percent. efficiency.
Covas said the federal government would order 100 million doses of CoronaVac, more than double the 46 million that were initially advertised.
Brazil has suffered the second highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world after the United States, with 188,000 deaths.
Source (s): AFP
