RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -The CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd showed between 50% and 90% effectiveness in Brazilian trials, said Sao Paulo’s secretary of state for health, and his Brazilian producer said the full results of the trials will be released by January 7th.
The results of the trials in Brazil are known exclusively by the biomedical research center of the Butantan Institute of the state of São Paulo, which has an agreement with Sinovac to produce the vaccine, said Health Secretary Jean Gorinchteyn.
Early trials showed an efficiency of more than 50%, the minimum required by Brazilian health regulator Anvisa, and less than 90%, Gorinchteyn said in an interview with CBN radio aired Thursday afternoon.
At Sinovac’s request, the Sao Paulo health department has not received the results of the full trial of the Chinese drug maker, he added, adding that the company will review the data before announcing the final results.
Butantan will release the results of the data tests in a maximum of 15 days, or before January 7, the institute said in a note Friday.
The South American country has recorded 7,448,560 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 190,488 deaths from COVID-19, the country’s health ministry said on Friday.
On Wednesday, Butantan declined to specify the effectiveness rate of a trial with 13,000 volunteers, citing contractual obligations with Sinovac and raising questions about transparency.
The CoronaVac vaccine showed 91.25% effectiveness in Turkey, according to an announcement this Thursday of provisional data from a final phase trial in the country.
Report by Sabrina Valle; Edited by David Goodman and Dan Grebler