Brazil Gives Nod To Emergency Use Of 2 COVID-19 Vaccines, Shots Begin
KEY POINTS
Brazil has recorded 8.4 million COVID-19 cases to date
Over 200,000 deaths have been linked to the virus in the country
After a slew of anti-vaccine campaigns, disinformation and political infighting that kept bungling the COVID-19 immunization plans of Brazil, the South American nation has finally started its vaccine rollout.
Brazil’s Health Regulator Anvisa on Sunday gave emergency approval to two Covid-19 vaccines from China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd and Britain’s AstraZeneca as the country witnessed a second wave of the outbreak. The health regulator s board of directors voted unanimously to approve the two vaccines, both of which require two doses.
Updated Jan. 12, 2021 8:10 pm ET
SÃO PAULO China’s effort to boost its image by providing Covid-19 vaccines to the developing world suffered a setback after one of its leading inoculation candidates turned out to be 50% effective in late-stage trials in Brazil, significantly lower than earlier results showed.
While Sinovac’s CoronaVac efficacy rate still meets the 50% threshold the World Health Organization considers good enough for widespread use, scientists said a lack of transparency about the data risks damaging the credibility of a vaccine Brazilians and others world-wide are already reluctant to take.
Brazil’s Butantan Institute, a São Paulo-based public institute that is the first to complete late-stage trials of the CoronaVac vaccine, had said last week that it was shown to be 78% effective and offer total protection against severe cases of the disease.
A Chinese vaccine has been found to be significantly less effective than previous data had suggested, even as the Brazilian research institute that conducted the phase 3 clinical trials urges the public not to focus on the new efficacy rate. The SAo Paulo-based Butantan Institute - which is running final-stage clinical trials for CoronaVac, manufactured by Beijing-based Sinovac - submitted new data to Brazil's health regulator on Tuesday,.