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The regulator says testing of the vaccine will continue after death and does not provide further details.
Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (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, but added that the trial would continue.
It was not immediately clear whether the volunteer received the vaccine or the placebo.
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 lawsuits.
Oxford confirmed the plan to keep testing.
“After careful evaluation of this case in Brazil, there have been no concerns about the safety of the clinical trial, and the independent review, in addition to the Brazilian regulator, has recommended that the trial continue,” the British university said in a statement.
The Federal University of Sao Paulo, which is helping coordinate phase three of the vaccine’s clinical trials in Brazil, said separately that the volunteer was Brazilian.
CNN Brazil reported that the volunteer was a 28-year-old man who lived in Rio de Janeiro and died of complications from COVID-19.
Shares of AstraZeneca turned negative and fell 1.7 percent.
The federal government already has plans to purchase the vaccine 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 rival vaccine from China’s 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.
The United States paused trials of the UK-based AstraZeneca vaccine after reports of serious illness during the UK trial, pending a review from the US Food and Drug Administration. States (FDA).
Sources told Reuters on October 20 that the US trial could resume this week, after the FDA review is complete.
The FDA did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on whether the death of the Brazilian volunteer would affect the resumption of the trial in the US.
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