COVID-19: Brazil set to use Chinese made CoronaVac vaccine

On Tuesday, Brazilian officials announced that Brazil would be using the Chinese made CoronaVac vaccine to immunize its citizens.

The São Paulo governor, João Doria, announced that the government would buy 46 million doses of the Chinese-made vaccine, CoronaVac.

Doria said the nationwide immunization program could commence as early as January 2021.

Developed by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech, CoronaVac would be one of two vaccines used in Brazil’s nationwide immunization program if approved by the country’s National Health Surveillance Agency.

The second vaccine that Brazil will use to immunize its citizens is the English made Oxford University vaccine.

Previously on Monday, Butantan Institute, a São Paulo state research center, announced that the two-dose vaccine proved to be effective in a late-stage clinical trial.

Top scientists and analysts have said that the total number of individuals infected is likely to be much higher than published figures during testing and tracing issues and potential under-reporting by the government.

The United States is currently leading global COVID-19 cases with over 8.5 million infections and 225,937 fatalities, although India follows closely behind with 7.6 million cases and 115,948 deaths. As for the third-highest case toll and death toll, Brazil follows with 5.2 million cases and 154,837 deaths, Russia with 1.4 million cases and 24,635 deaths, and Spain with 1 million infections and 34,210 deaths.

The novel coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan, Hubei, China, on Dec. 31, 2019, and has infected more than 41 million individuals worldwide, resulting in over 1.3 million fatalities across 188 countries and territories.