   The event occurred on October 29, but the government statement did not go into any further details. - VOA photo - |
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Wednesday, November 11, 2020
International News Brazil stops Chinese vaccine
trials against covid-19 By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services Just after news of a breakthrough in the effort to develop a safe and effective covid-19 vaccine, Brazil has halted late-stage clinical trials of CoronaVac, developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovace, reported Voice of America Journal, VOA, on Tuesday. According to the VOA report, the Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária, ANVISA, country’s health regulator, announced that it was pausing tests of CoronaVac after an “adverse, serious event” with a volunteer participant. The event occurred on October 29, but the government statement did not go into any further details. The clinical trials in Brazil are being conducted by Sao Paulo-based research institute Butantan. Dimas Covas, the head of the state-run institute, told a local television station that a volunteer had died, but the death was ruled not due to the vaccine. The Sinovac vaccine is the third to be put on hold after a volunteer became ill after being inoculated. The U.S. pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson put a hold on its late-stage clinical trials of its covid-19 vaccine last month, while another U.S.-based drugmaker, AstraZeneca, halted its late-stage trial of a vaccine developed with the University of Oxford in September after a volunteer in Britain was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, an inflammatory syndrome that affects the spinal cord and is often sparked by viral infections. It is not uncommon for clinical trials to be suspended if a volunteer falls ill so that organizers can determine whether the illness is due to the vaccine. But, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has often expressed mistrust of China, has openly doubted the effectiveness of the Sinovac vaccine and has insisted that his government will not purchase the drug. Covid-19 infections have spiked in other parts of the world. Globally the number of confirmed cases is more than 50 million, with 1.2 million deaths and 33 million people recovered according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering, CSSE, at Johns Hopkins University. ------------------------------ Should governments approve potential vaccines against covid-19 that are also under observance by the World health organization? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com  |
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