Brazil suspends trials for China's CoronaVac after ANIVASA reports 'severe incident'

As the country continues to grapple with COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil's health regulator Anvisa on Monday suspended the clinical trails of China's Sinovac Coronavirus vaccine after a 'severe incident'. The local news reports suggest that the National Health Surveillance Agency ANVISA has temporarily suspended human testing of the Chinese vaccine Coronavac due to a 'serious adverse effect'.  

Brazil suspends CoronaVac clinical trials

Brazil's decision to suspend the clinical trails of China's Coronavirus vaccine comes amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the country. As per the latest reports, Brazil on Monday recorded 10,917 new cases. Currently, the country's total case tally is 1,590,025, while the total number of deaths is 161,106. This major setback for China's CoronaVac vaccine came after US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced that its own vaccine candidate has shown 90 per cent effectiveness against the pandemic. 

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Head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, Kathrin Jansen said, "I would say that it is a historical moment. Something like this has bever happened before. First of all, the world was faced with such a terrible situation, the pandemic, and being able in such a short time to go through what usually takes many years."

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Brazil imports COVID-19 vaccine doses from China

Earlier in October, Brazil's health regulator authorised the import of a potential vaccine against Coronavirus from China. This statement was announced just days after Jair Bolsonaro had said that he wouldn't allow vaccine doses to be shipped from the Asian nation. Reacting to this statement, Anvisa said that Sao Paulo state's Butantan Institute can import 6 million doses of CoronaVac which is being developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac. It also added that this vaccine will be administered to the Brazilians only when it is approved locally.

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(With inputs from ANI)