Source: WSJ
By Samantha Pearson and Luciana Magalhaes
Brazil is first country to complete Phase 3 trials of Chinese company’s vaccine; official results due out Wednesday
SÃO PAULO—Sinovac Biotech Ltd.’s Covid-19 vaccine, which scientists hope can help combat the pandemic in the developing world, has passed the 50% threshold for efficacy in late-stage trials in Brazil, meaning regulators can give it the green light for use, people involved in its development said.
Brazil is the first country to complete Phase 3 trials of the Chinese company’s CoronaVac vaccine, which is also being tested in Indonesia and Turkey. With Covid-19 largely under control in China, the country’s vaccine developers have had to conduct their clinical trials abroad.
People involved in the Brazilian trials, which completed Phase 3 last week, told The Wall Street Journal that the results showed CoronaVac with an effective rate above 50%, the threshold for a vaccine to be considered viable by international scientists. The people declined to give any further information. But scientists tracking the vaccine’s development say they expect it to show efficacy comparable to other Covid-19 vaccines that have proven 95% effective in trials.
“Everyone is hoping for an efficacy rate above 90%,” said Domingos Alves, a professor at Ribeirão Preto Medical School in São Paulo who specializes in analyzing health data. “The results from the first phases of trials were very good.”
Brazil’s Butantan Institute, the research center backed by the São Paulo state government that has been testing CoronaVac, is poised to announce the vaccine’s efficacy rate on Wednesday. Butantan said Monday that it considers any information given at this time on the vaccine’s efficacy as “mere speculation.”
(Reuters) – Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech Ltd’s COVID-19 vaccine has shown to be effective in late-stage trials in Brazil, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people involved in the vaccine’s development.
Sao Paulo state’s Butantan Institute, which is organizing the late-stage trials of Sinovac’s vaccine CoronaVac in Brazil, said on Monday that any reports on the efficacy of the shot before a Wednesday announcement were “mere speculation.”
Brazil is the first country to complete late-stage trials of CoronaVac, which is also being tested in Indonesia and Turkey, the Journal reported https://www.wsj.com/articles/sinovacs-covid-19-vaccine-shown-to-be-effective-in-brazil-trials-11608581330?mod=latest_headlines.
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The results from the Brazil trials put CoronaVac above the 50% threshold that international scientists deem necessary to protect people, the Journal report said.
Butantan is poised on Wednesday to announce CoronaVac’s efficacy rate, according to the Journal.
Sinovac did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Sinovac and AstraZeneca Plc’s vaccine candidates may be ready for use in Brazil by mid-February, the country’s health minister said last week.
https://news.yahoo.com/chinas-sinovac-covid-19-vaccine-211132595.html
In October, Sinovac reported that 10,000 Beijing residents had already been injected with its vaccine.
News of promising results from Sinovac follow similar reports regarding another possible vaccine, from the Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopharm.
The United Arab Emirates reported earlier this month that its trial of Sinopharm’s vaccine candidate indicated it was 86 percent effective at preventing the coronavirus and 100 percent effective at preventing moderate and severe cases of COVID-19. The United Arab Emirates approved Sinopharm’s vaccine on Dec. 10, becoming the first government to do so.
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/531206-chinas-covid-19-vaccine-effective-in-late-stage-trials-in-brazil-report