Coronavirus: Brazil trial of Chinese jab halted after volunteer ‘suicide’

Brazil has suspended late-stage clinical trials of China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine after what the regulator described as a ‘severe adverse event’.

A health worker at Sao Lucas Hospital Hospital at Porto Alegre in southern Brazil administers a Sinovac Biotech vaccine to volunteer Fabiana Souza. Picture: AFP

Brazil has suspended late-stage clinical trials of China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine after what the regulator described as a “severe adverse event”.

The event is assumed to be the death of a volunteer, which the vaccine’s local developers insist was not directly linked to the vaccine. Any unexplained death would be of serious concern, given that China has already started administering its vaccines to hundreds of thousands of people, including the Chinese military, under an emergency use approval scheme.

The coroner’s office that carried out an autopsy on the deceased volunteer’s body said police were investigating the death as a suicide.

However, there have been suggestions that political pressure to stop the trial might have been put on the health regulator by President Bolsonaro, a rightwinger who has long been sceptical about the likely efficacy of a China-developed vaccine and insisted that Brazilians should not be used as “guinea pigs” before its release.

Suspicions of presidential meddling increased after Mr Bolsonaro appeared to gloat over the news that the trial had been halted. “Another victory for Jair Bolsonaro,” was how his official Facebook page broke the news.

A doctor from Sao Lucas Hospital holds a coronavirus vaccine produced by Sinovac Biotech. Picture: AFP

Mr Bolsonaro, who has consistently played down the risk of coronavirus, is in a long-running dispute with Sao Paulo’s state governor, Joao Doria, who has led efforts to contain the disease and offered his state’s support to Sinovac, which had appeared to be on the brink of receiving government approval.

Construction had begun in Sao Paulo on a facility that would be able to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine every year. Mr Doria had said he was open to the idea of compulsory vaccination. He may be a candidate for president against Mr Bolsonaro, in 2022.

Mr Bolsonaro said on Facebook: “This is the vaccine Doria wanted to force everyone in Sao Paulo to take.”

Dimas Covas, the head of the Butantan Institute, which is developing the vaccine for use in Brazil in co-operation with Sinovac, said he found the decision to suspend trials “a little strange because it is a death unrelated to the vaccine”. “There are more than 10,000 volunteers at this time, deaths can happen,” he said.

China’s ministry of foreign affairs tweeted: “Sinovac will continue to communicate with Brazil on this matter”.

Another vaccine, being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, is also undergoing final trials in Brazil. Its testing restarted last month after the death of a volunteer understood to have been in a placebo group.

President Jair Bolsonaro has long been sceptical of a China-developed vaccine and insisted that Brazilians should not be used as ‘guinea pigs’ before its release. Picture: Getty Images

Brazil said yesterday (Tuesday) it was also in talks with the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and Germany’s Biontech to buy their vaccine, which has been found to be more than 90 per cent effective against the disease.

Brazil has recorded more than 162,000 deaths from COVID-19, and more than five million cases. Both have been trailing off in recent weeks.

The Times