Brazil approves human trials for Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine candidate

On August 18, Brazilian Health regulators said they had approved Johnson and Johnson's experimental vaccine against novel coronavirus for the final stage of clinical trials. Johnson and Johnson's is the fourth vaccine to get extensive testing approval in one of the worst-hit countries by the virus. According to a statement by Brazilian Health regulatory agency Anvisa, a subsidiary of US pharmaceutical giant Janssen will test the vaccine on 7000 volunteers across seven states in Brazil. There are around 60,000 people worldwide those who will try experimental vaccine by Johnson and Johnson’s.

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As per Brazilian Health regulator, these trials are final trials, which are done before approving any vaccine, in other words, these experimental trials are also called randomized, controlled, double-blind Phase 3 trials, or large-scale testing on humans. Anvisa official Gustavo Mendes said a new vaccine study approved in Brazil is a very important development. With the second-highest number of cases and deaths, Brazil has become an important testing ground for the vaccine against the contagious virus. The other three coronavirus vaccine testing approved by Brazil are Oxford University’s vaccine in partnership with pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech, and US firm Pfizer in partnership with Germany's BioNTech.

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Parana approaches Russia

The Brazilian State of Parana, on August 11, said that it was in talks with Russia to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines. The announcement came hours after Moscow officially registered a coronavirus vaccine and claimed it to be ready for use. Brazil, which has second-highest coronavirus cases in the world, had previously claimed to start the distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine, if successful, by end of 2020.

Speaking to international media reporters, Joao Pedro Schonarth from the State Research Institute confirmed that talks with Moscow were underway. He also revealed that the state’s Governor Rathinho Junior was set to meet the Russian ambassador to Brazil, on Aug 12 to negotiate a possible deal. However, he did not specify if a deal would be signed or not.

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