SAO PAULO (AP) – According to the results of a study announced on Thursday by Brazilian state health officials, a vaccine candidate made by Sinovac of China wants 78% protection against the coronavirus.
More than 12,000 health workers participated in the study, which detected 218 cases of COVID-19 – about 160 people among those who received a placebo, rather than the actual vaccine.
Turkish officials said last month that an efficiency rate of more than 90% was found in a smaller, companion study in the same country of the same vaccine candidate.
The government of the state of Sao Paulo, which has contracted for the vaccine, said it would ask Brazilian federal health regulators for approval in emergencies to start using it. Government João Doria plans to launch a vaccination campaign on January 25 for the state’s 46 million inhabitants.
Sao Paulo’s Butantan Institute, which is Sinovac’s partner in Brazil, did not release data such as age and gender results or the number of asymptomatic volunteers in the sample, which requires many epidemiologists to determine if the shot meets safety standards. .
Officials said details would be released after the Brazilian health regulatory agency approved the vaccine. They did not give a date for publication in scientific publications.
Gonzalo Vecina, one of the founders of the Brazilian health agency, said the data so far has been reassuring enough to approve the shot for emergency use.
“In general, there is enough information to log in to register and use it,” Vecina told The Associated Press. ‘We need 320 million vaccines for 160 million Brazilians, that’s our population older than 18 years. If the federal government does not do this, the state governments will do it, but we must do it quickly. We are already behind many nations. ”
The health agency said in a statement that it had not yet received full data on the study.
The researchers reported no serious side effects in the study.
The US has demanded that at least 30,000 people test the vaccine candidates to determine safety and efficacy.
The Sinovac candidate was ready for late tests at a time when China was spreading so little coronavirus that the company was forced to go to various locations abroad to gather the necessary data.
“Today is the day of hope, the day of life,” Doria told a news conference. Brazil is approaching 200,000 deaths caused by the virus.
The governor of Sao Paulo is an opponent of President Jair Bolsonaro, who has downplayed the risks of the pandemic since its inception and has repeatedly questioned the quality of the Chinese vaccination.
Following Doria’s announcement, Brazilian Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello told a news conference in Brasilia that the Bolsonaro government would buy up to 100 million doses of Sinovac shot. The state government of Sao Paulo confirmed the agreement with an initial supply of 46 million doses.
“These shots will be distributed evenly and proportionately among all states, as will happen with the AstraZeneca countries,” Pazuello said.
The federal government of Brazil already has an agreement to insure 100 million doses of the vaccine created by AstraZeneca, of which 70 million are produced in-house.
Pazuello said shots fired by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna, which are already effective, are expensive and raise many legal issues. He also said that the Brazilian government is eager to buy single-vaccine vaccines developed by Jansen if it works.
In the evening, shortly after Brazil exceeded 200,000 deaths by COVID-19 in its official version, the Sao Paulo state government said it had reached an agreement with Brazil’s health ministry to supply 46 million doses of the vaccine. It did not say whether it would hold the start of its January 25 vaccination campaign.
Bolsonaro told supporters in the capital Brasilia earlier on Thursday that vaccines approved for emergency use should not be mandatory, without mentioning the Sinovac shot. So far, his administration has no national vaccination plan.
“No one can force someone to take something whose consequences are still unknown,” Bolsonaro said. The president, who had previously suffered an attack on COVID-19, reiterated that he would not take any vaccine.
Another Chinese company, SinoPharm, announced last week that its similar vaccine is about 79% effective. Both vaccines rely on inactivated viruses.