Clinical trials in Brazil suggest that the vaccine developed by Sinovac is 50.38% effective overall, the institute in charge of production in Brazil said on Tuesday.
As it had already indicated last week, the Butantan Institute said that the vaccine prevented 78% of those who had nevertheless contracted the virus from needing to be hospitalised and 100% of them from developing serious forms of the disease.
Coronavac, as the vaccine is called, "is a safe, effective vaccine that meets all the requirements for emergency use," said Dimas Covas, the director of the Butantan Institute.
The vaccine was tested on 12,500 volunteers, "health professionals in direct contact with Covid-19,” said Ricardo Palacios, the head of clinical trials at the Institute.
Related News
- Confidence in coronavirus vaccine grows in Belgium
- Chinese Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine is 97% effective, Bio Farma says
According to these results, Coronovac meets the condition of more than 50% efficacy required by the World Health Organisation (WHO). However, it appears to be far less effective than other vaccines, such as the Pfizer/BioNTech (95%) and Moderna (94.1%) vaccines.
These are the two vaccines currently approved for use in the EU, with several countries including Belgium having received their first doses of the Moderna vaccine on Monday.
On Friday, the Butantan Institute applied to the Brazilian regulatory agency Anvisa for approval of the Sinovac vaccine. An application has also been filed for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine by the public institute Fiocruz, which will be in charge of its production in Brazil.
Brazil, which has a population of 212 million, has recorded more than 203,000 deaths from Covid-19 for eight million contaminations.
The Brussels Times
