The clinical trials of a Chinese vaccine candidate against the coronavirus, Coronavac, were suspended in Brazil after a “serious incident” noted in a volunteer, announced, on Monday, November 9, 2020, the health authority of Brazil.
The incident took place on October 29, confirms the health vigilance agency (Anvisa) in a press release without giving more details on what happened, but indicated that this type of incident could include death, potentially fatal side effects, serious disability, hospitalization and other “clinically significant events”.
This vaccine was under development by the Chinese Biopharmaceutical Company Sinovac and in Brazil, it was produced by the Botantan Institute in Sao Paulo, the public organization which coordinates vaccine trials in this country.
The Chinese Laboratory Sinovac Biotech must provide more details but said it was confident in the safety of its experimental vaccine. “We are confident in the security of the vaccine,” said Sinovac in a statement, saying that the incident in question was “unrelated” to the vaccine.
The Coronavac vaccine has already aroused controversy in Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro threw doubt on his prospective efficiency and sowed confusion last month by rejecting it publicly, while his Minister of Health, Eduardo Pazuello, had agreed to buy doses of Coronavac produced locally by Butantan.
Note that this stop for Coronavac occurred the day when the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced that its coronavirus vaccine had reached an efficiency of 90%.
