Brazil suspends trials of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine due to "adverse event"

Brasília, Brazil: The final-stage trial of a Chinese coronavirus vaccine examinations been stopped in Brazil due to a serious unfavourable occurrence stated the Brazilian Health Agency on Tuesday.

Testing of Sinovac Biotech Ltd.’s vaccine, called Coronavac, has been suspended in Brazil after an incident that happened on Oct. 29, announced the Brazil Health Agency on Tuesday, without providing any additional specifications on what happened.

The study is suspended in accordance with regulations while the agency examines if the study should proceed, it announced.

Sao Paulo’s Instituto Butantan partnered with Sinovac to create the vaccine locally, said in a declaration it was stunned by choice and is looking into aspects of what appeared in the study. Director Dimas Covas announced in a TV interview that one volunteer in the vaccine trial has died, but that the death is claimed to be not related to the vaccine.

Halts to study difficult unfavourable situations are not unusual in large-scale drug trials, and two western developers - AstraZeneca Plc and Johnson & Johnson have also delayed their vaccine trials in recent months due to such events, only to re-start them after the examination.

But China has already commenced offering its vaccines, including Coronavac, to hundreds of thousands of people under an extensive emergency use consent, making the possibility of a security issue being recognised at this platform more concerning.

The suspended examination begins after the Sinovac vaccine became the centre of an escalating dispute in Brazil. President Jair Bolsonaro moved up criticism of the vaccine last month, declaring China lacks the honesty to come up with clarifications for the coronavirus crisis and that people wouldn’t feel safe with the shot “due to its origin.”

China’s Foreign Ministry shrugged off the study, saying the two nations have “sound cooperation on epidemic control.”