SÃO PAULO: The Covid-19 vaccine from Sinovac Biotech Ltd., which scientists hope can help fight the pandemic in the developing world, has exceeded the 50% efficiency threshold in end-stage trials in Brazil, which it means regulators can give the green light to its use, said the people involved in its development.
Brazil is the first country to complete phase 3 trials of the Chinese company’s CoronaVac vaccine, which is also being tested in Indonesia and Turkey. With Covid-19 largely controlled in China, vaccine developers in the country have had to conduct their clinical trials abroad.
People who participated in the Brazilian trials, which completed phase 3 last week, told The Wall Street Journal that the results showed CoronaVac with an effective rate of more than 50%, the threshold for a vaccine to be considered viable by international scientists. People refused to give more information. But scientists monitoring the vaccine’s development say it expects it to show comparable efficacy to other Covid-19 vaccines that have been shown to be 95% effective in trials.
“Everyone expects an efficiency rate of over 90%,” said Domingos Alves, a professor at the Ribeirão Preto Medical School in São Paulo, which specializes in the analysis of health data. “The results of the early stages of the trials were very good.”
The Butantan Institute in Brazil, the research center backed by the São Paulo state government that has been testing CoronaVac, is set to announce the vaccine’s effectiveness rate on Wednesday. Butantan said Monday it considers any information given at this time about the vaccine’s effectiveness to be “mere speculation.”
São Paulo Governor João Doria said he plans to vaccinate the entire state, where a fifth of Brazil’s population lives, by the end of July, almost a year before the federal government has promised to vaccinate the rest of the population. Brazilian.
Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.
Photo:
fabio motta / Shutterstock
Doria said the results of the CoronaVac phase 3 tests would be handed over to regulators in China and Brazil on Wednesday, adding that the state of São Paulo plans to start administering the vaccine on January 25th.
Butantan, which also began producing the Sinovac vaccine in Brazil this month, has agreed with the private Chinese firm to become the distributor of CoronaVac in Latin America. In May, Butantan plans to begin shipping the vaccine to Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, Peru and Uruguay, Butantan director Dimas Covas said in an interview.
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As richer countries buy supplies of Covid-19 vaccines from Western drug manufacturers that are still in development, China and Russia offer their quick shots to the poorest nations. This is what they hope to get in return. Illustration: Ksenia Shaikhutdinova
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