China's Sinovac Shot Controls Covid In Brazil Town After 75% Covered

A study of a small Brazilian town vaccinated with the shot made by Sinovac Biotech Ltd. showed it can control Covid-19 outbreaks more effectively than expected from clinical testing, giving another boost to the Chinese-made inoculation that's relied on by dozens of developing countries.

While neighboring cities were being hit hard by the pandemic, Serrana -- a town of 45,000 people where the study was carried out by the Sao Paulo state government -- saw deaths fall by 95% in the five weeks right after the mass-vaccination was completed. Symptomatic cases dropped by 80% and hospitalizations decreased by 86%.

About 75% of the town's residents were fully vaccinated; of the target adult population, 95% came forward to receive both doses.

No severe side effects from the vaccine were reported and there were no Covid-related deaths among participants 14 days after the second dose was applied. The area around Serrana, some 315 kilometers (195 miles) from Sao Paulo, was overrun by the P1 variant during the study, affirming the jab's effectiveness against the strain first found in Brazil, said Ricardo Palacios, research director at Butantan Institute.

"Now we can say that it's possible to control the pandemic with vaccines," Ricardo Palacios, research director at Butantan said, adding that Covid-19 numbers also fell for children. "This shows that it isn't necessary to vaccinate children to open schools."

The Serrana study may offer clues for other developing nations on how much of the public needs to be vaccinated in order to begin moving past the pandemic that continues to wreak havoc in Latin America and beyond. It is also the latest in a string of real-world evidence validating the controversial Chinese shot, which only just cleared the minimum 50% efficacy threshold in clinical trials, the lowest among first-generation Covid vaccines. Sinovac, a Bejing-based company, has also been criticized for disclosing less trial and safety data than western vaccine makers.

People gather at a park in Serrana, Brazil, on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The small town of 46,000, where the virus has been twice as deadly as in its neighbors, was chosen for a study researchers say is the first of its kind in the

But data that's emerging from countries that widely deployed the shot in recent months has been broadly positive. Last month, a study based on nearly 130,000 health workers in Indonesia's capital Jakarta shows the shot is 94% effective against symptomatic infection, and slashes hospitalization and death by 96% and 98% respectively, rates comparable to mRNA vaccines.

It's still unknown how well the shot works to stop onward transmission, that is, whether it can also halt the spread of infection and not just sickness.

While infection rates improved after first doses were administered, Covid-19 wasn't properly controlled in Serrana until after a second shot was given. A complete study will be published soon.

That underlines the importance of people returning for a second shot. In Brazil, some 66 million vaccines have been administered, covering 21.4% of the population with a single dose. About 10.5% of the country is now considered to be fully inoculated, according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker.

Pedestrians walk in front of a church in Serrana, Brazil, on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. The small town of 46,000, where the virus has been twice as deadly as in its neighbors, was chosen for a study researchers say is the first of its kind in the

Despite the vaccine's widespread use around the world, it has yet to be granted emergency use listing from the World Health Organization, the body's version of regulatory approval that has been given to western vaccines and a similar shot from China's Sinopharm.

The international health agency's stamp of approval would enable the shot to be distributed even more widely through the Covax facility that aims to ensure access to safe and effective vaccines especially for poor countries. WHO is seeking more data from the company on the shot's safety and manufacturing process, Dow Jones reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)