Sinovac vaccine in China has been shown to be 78% effective against Covid-19 in Brazilian end-of-life trials, with 100% protection against severe cases of the disease.
The results, cited by the Brazilian Buttan Institute, the São Paulo-based research center that tested the vaccine in Phase 3 trials, raise hopes that the image could be widely used in the the developing world.
With Covid-19 largely under control in China, the country’s vaccine developers have had to turn to other countries to conduct their clinical trials.
Brazil is the first country to complete Phase 3 trials of the vaccine, known as CoronaVac, which involved 13,000 volunteers. Efficacy level would be 78% lower than the interim result reported by researchers in Turkey at the end of the month, where initial data from 1,300 people in end-of-period tests showed that the CoronaVac vaccine was 91.5 % effective. Indonesia has also been testing the vaccine but Stage 3 results are not yet available.
Write to Samantha Pearson at [email protected] and Luciana Magalhaes at [email protected]