The study will involve the city of Serrana, in the southeast of the state of Sao Paulo, said the research institute
“The entire adult population, estimated at 30,000 people, will be immunized in three months, in unprecedented action,” the Butantan Institute wrote via Twitter on Wednesday.
The idea of vaccinating the largest number of people will allow researchers to “follow the evolution of the epidemic. It has technical aspects that will make calculations, make projections and calculate whether the vaccine is able to reduce the transmission of the virus,” said Dimas Tadeu Covas, the director of the institute.
The city of Serrana, with a population of approximately 45,000 inhabitants, has been divided into four regions with color codes. According to the Butantan Institute, all people over the age of 18 will be given a Coronavac vaccine, with the exception of pregnant or lactating women and those with serious illnesses.
“Based on what we will learn here, we will be able to tell the rest of the world what the real effect of vaccination against Covid-19 is,” said Ricardo Palacios, director of clinical studies at Butantan.
There are rays of hope, said Wednesday the director of the Pan American Health Organization, Dr. Carissa Etienne. “After many weeks of rising Covid cases and deaths, we are starting to improve trends in some of the hardest hit countries, including the United States and Brazil,” he said during a weekly online briefing.
He warned, however, that these trends are “a cause for hope, but not for celebration.”