SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil recorded 1,803 new deaths from COVID-19 on Sunday, as a large study found that a Chinese vaccine that has become the focal point of the country’s vaccination campaign has a 50, 7% effectiveness against the new own infectious variant known as P1.
Brazil, which in recent weeks has become the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, recorded more than 37,000 new cases, the health ministry said on Sunday. With more than 353,000 deaths, the largest country in Latin America has the second highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world, after the United States.
The outbreak has recently reached its most severe phase due to the lack of federal restrictions, an irregular deployment of vaccines and the P1 variant.
The Butantan biomedical institute in Sao Paulo, which is now testing and producing the CoronaVac vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd, said Sunday that a study showed that the shot had an efficacy rate of 50.7. % against the P1 variant and a less extended strain known as P2.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a hawk and skeptic of China’s vaccine that has come under fire for its treatment of the outbreak, initially said his government would not buy Sinovac’s shot, but later made a change of meaning while his government struggled to secure supplies. Since then, the Chinese feature has become the most administered in the country.
Butantan said that if the second dose is delayed by more than two weeks, the effectiveness rises to 62.3%. The vaccine has an effectiveness of between 83.7% and 100% to prevent those infected from needing medical attention, he said.
The study, which was said to have been sent to the medical journal The Lancet for publication, tested 12,400 volunteers across Brazil.
Report by Alexandre Caverni; Edited by Peter Cooney