{"id":100765,"date":"2020-11-10T13:06:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T05:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=100765"},"modified":"2020-11-10T13:06:27","modified_gmt":"2020-11-10T05:06:27","slug":"covid-19-brazil-halts-trials-of-chinese-vaccine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=100765","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Brazil halts trials of Chinese vaccine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Brazil\u2019s health regulator said it had suspended clinical trials of a Chinese-developed Covid-19 vaccine after an \u201cadverse incident\u201d involving a volunteer recipient, a blow for one of the most advanced vaccine candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The setback for CoronaVac, developed by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech, came on the same day US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said its own vaccine candidate had shown 90 percent effectiveness, sending global markets soaring and raising hopes of an end to the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brazilian regulator, Anvisa, said in a statement it had \u201cruled to interrupt the clinical trial of the CoronaVac vaccine after a serious adverse incident\u201d on Oct 29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said it could not give details on what happened because of privacy regulations, but that such incidents included death, potentially fatal side effects, serious disability, hospitalization, birth defects and other \u201cclinically significant events.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the public health center coordinating the trials of the vaccine in Brazil, the Butantan Institute, said it was \u201csurprised\u201d by the decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The institute \u201cis investigating in detail what happened,\u201d and \u201cis at the Brazilian regulatory agency\u2019s disposal to provide any clarification necessary on any adverse incident the clinical trials may have presented,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said it would hold a press conference on Tuesday at 11:00 am (1400 GMT).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CoronaVac has been caught up in a messy political battle in Brazil, where its most visible backer has been Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, a top opponent of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolsonaro has labeled CoronaVac the vaccine from \u201cthat other country,\u201d and pushed instead for a rival vaccine developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, Bolsonaro shot down a plan by his own health minister to buy 46 million doses of CoronaVac, saying, \u201cThe Brazilian people will not be anyone\u2019s guinea pig\u201d and referring to it as \u201cJoao Doria\u2019s Chinese vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doria announced earlier Monday that the first 120,000 doses of CoronaVac would arrive in Sao Paulo on Nov 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His state has a deal with Sinovac to buy a total of 46 million doses \u2014 six million produced in China and the remainder produced in Sao Paulo, which broke ground last week on a factory to produce the vaccine domestically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOfficials in the state government fear Bolsonaro will use technical decisions to delay the timeline of the vaccine for political reasons,\u201d newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported, citing unnamed Doria allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sinovac, Pfizer and Oxford vaccines are all in Phase III trials, the final stage of testing before regulatory approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And all are being tested in Brazil, the country with the second-highest death toll in the pandemic, after the United States, with more than 162,000 people killed by the new coronavirus. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Brazil\u2019s health regulator said it had suspended clinical trials of a Chinese-developed Covid-19 vaccine after an \u201cadverse incident\u201d involving a volunteer recipient, a blow for one of the most advanced vaccine candidates. The setback for CoronaVac, developed by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech, came on the same day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":100769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208,215,209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100765"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/100769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}