Brazil to continue COVID vaccine trial despite volunteer's death

Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) announced on Wednesday that a volunteer in a clinical examination of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University had lost his life, but announced the vaccine trial would proceed.

It was not instantly evident whether the volunteer took the vaccine or just the shot.

The regulator announced while the experiment of the vaccine would continue, it presented no additional specifications regarding the volunteer’s death, calling the medical confidentiality of those involved in trials. Oxford established it would keep testing.

“Following careful evaluation of this predicament in Brazil, there have been no interests about the protection of the clinical trial, and the autonomous inspection in extension to the Brazilian regulator have suggested that the trial should proceed,” the British university announced in a statement.

The Federal University of Sao Paulo, which is supporting correspondent stage three clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine in Brazil, stated distinctly that the volunteer was a Brazilian.

The Brazilian government already has plans to acquire the vaccine and present it at its biomedical research centre Fiocruz in Rio de Janeiro. In contrast, another vaccine from China’s Sinovac is being examined by Sao Paulo state’s examination centre, the Butantan Institute.

More than 155,000 people in Brazil have expired from COVID-19, the second-biggest mortality rate in the world after the United States. Brazil has recorded over 5.3 million incidents of the coronavirus, the number is third-largest in the world after the US and India.

The US discontinued experiments of the vaccine from AstraZeneca, which is based in the United Kingdom, after a volunteer in the UK trial reached severe sickness, pending a report from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Sources informed Reuters news agency on October 20 that the US experiment could recommence as quick as this week, following the achievement of the FDA review.