Late-stage trials in Brazil for Chinese Sinovac Biotech COVID-19 vaccine have shown promising results, positioning it for public use, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
According to the newspaper, the vaccine, CoronaVac, has reached the third stage of trials in Brazil, the first country to complete the third stage of testing for Sinovac’s vaccine. The experimental vaccine is also being tested in Indonesia and Turkey.
Sources involved in the development of the vaccine told the Journal that the results of the trial in Brazil indicate that the Sinovac vaccine is above the 50 percent threshold that the scientific community deems necessary for adequate protection against the virus.
São Paulo governor João Doria has said the plan is to vaccinate all of São Paulo by the end of July, a year ahead of what the Brazilian federal government has promised. São Paulo accounts for about a fifth of the country’s population.
In October, Sinovac reported that 10,000 Beijing residents had already been injected with the vaccine.
News of promising results from Sinovac follows similar reports of another possible vaccine from Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopharm.
The United Arab Emirates reported earlier this month that their trial of Sinopharm’s vaccine candidate indicated that 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 December 10, becoming the first government to do so.