SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil on Sunday recorded 1,803 new deaths from COVID-19 as a major study found that a Chinese vaccine that became the pivot in the country’s vaccination campaign was 50.7% effective against the infectious new homemade variant, known as P1.
Brazil, which has become the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in recent weeks, has seen more than 37,000 new cases, the Ministry of Health said on Sunday. With more than 353,000 deaths, Latin America’s largest country has the second highest death rate in the world, after the United States.
The outbreak recently reached its worst stage due to a lack of federal restrictions, an irregular vaccination of the vaccine and the P1 variant.
Sao Paulo’s biomedical institute for Butantan, which has been testing and now manufacturing the CoronaVac vaccine, developed by Sinovac Biotech Ltd in China, said on Sunday in a study that it was found that the shot had an efficacy rate of 50.7% versus the P1 variant, and that a less widespread strain is known. such as P2.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a hawk and vaccine skeptic from China who came under fire for his handling of the outbreak, initially said his government would not buy the Sinovac shot, but later took a turn when his government struggled to secure supplies. Since then, the Chinese shot has become the most administered in the country.
Butantan said that if the second dose is delayed by more than two weeks, the effectiveness rises to 62.3%. The vaccine has an effectiveness of between 83.7% and 100% to prevent those infected from needing medical help.
The study, which was allegedly sent to the medical journal The Lancet for publication, tested 12,400 volunteers in Brazil.
Reporting by Alexandre Caverni; Edited by Peter Cooney