SAO PAULO (AP) – A vaccine candidate made by Chinese Sinovac is 78% effective in protecting against the coronavirus, according to the results of a study announced Thursday by Brazilian state health officials seeking federal approval of the vaccine.
More than 12,000 health professionals participated in the study, which detected 218 cases of COVID-19 – about 160 among people who received a placebo instead of the vaccine itself.
Turkish officials said last month that a smaller study, with the same vaccine candidate in that country, found an efficacy rate above 90%.
The São Paulo state government, which contracted the vaccine, said it would ask Brazil’s federal health regulators on Friday for emergency approval to start using it. Governor João Doria plans to start a vaccination campaign for 46 million residents of the state on January 25.
The Butantan Institute of São Paulo, a partner of Sinovac in Brazil, did not disclose data such as results by age and sex or the number of asymptomatic volunteers in the sample, which many epidemiologists require to assess whether the injection meets safety standards.
The authorities said the details will be published after the Brazilian health regulatory agency approves 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 revealed so far is reassuring enough to approve the injection for emergency use.
“In the big picture, we have enough information to go ahead, record it and use it,” Vecina told the Associated Press. “We need 320 million vaccines for 160 million Brazilians, this is our population over 18 years old. If the federal government doesn’t do that, state governments will, but we have to do it fast. We are already behind many nations ”.
The health agency said in a statement that it has not yet received complete data about the study.
The researchers did not report any serious side effects in the study.
The United States requires that vaccine candidates be tested on at least 30,000 people to determine safety and efficacy.
The Sinovac candidate was ready for the final stage of testing at a time when China had so little spread of the coronavirus that the company was forced to look elsewhere to gather the necessary data.
“Today is the day of hope, the day of life,” Doria said at a news conference. Brazil is close to 200,000 deaths caused by the virus.
The governor of São Paulo is an opponent of President Jair Bolsonaro, who from the beginning minimized the risks of the pandemic and repeatedly questioned the quality of the Chinese vaccine.
After Doria’s announcement, Brazilian Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said at a news conference in Brasília that the Bolsonaro government would buy up to 100 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine. The government of the state of São Paulo confirmed the deal, with an initial forecast of 46 million doses.
“These outlets will be distributed equally and proportionally among all states, as will be the case with AstraZeneca,” said Pazuello.
The Brazilian federal government already has an agreement to guarantee up to 100 million doses of the vaccine created by AstraZeneca, 70 million of which are produced on national soil.
Pazuello said that injections by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna, which have already proved effective, are expensive and bring many legal problems. He also said that the Brazilian government is eager to buy single injection vaccines under development by Jansen, if they work.
In the evening, shortly after Brazil overcame 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 in its official count, the state government of São Paulo said it had reached an agreement with the Ministry of Health of Brazil to provide 46 million doses of its vaccine . He did not say whether the vaccination campaign would start on 25 January.
On Thursday morning, Bolsonaro told supporters in the capital Brasília that vaccines approved for emergency use should not be mandatory without naming the Sinovac vaccine. To date, his government does not have a national vaccination plan.
“No one can force a person to take something whose consequences are still unknown,” said Bolsonaro. The president, who has already had an outbreak of COVID-19, repeated that he will not be vaccinated.
Another Chinese company, SinoPharm, announced last week that its similar vaccine is about 79% effective. Both vaccines depend on inactivated viruses.