Jakarta, CNN Indonesia –
The Peruvian government has temporarily suspended phase III clinical trials of a vaccine made by Chinese company Sinopharm after volunteers experienced neurological problems.
Peru’s National Institutes of Health decided on Friday to interrupt the clinical trial because one of the volunteers had difficulty moving his hand.
“A few days ago we gave a signal, as our duty should be, to the authorities that one of the clinical trial participants was displaying neurological symptoms, which could be related to Guillain-Barre syndrome,” said lead researcher, German Malaga, as quoted from AFP.
Guillain-arre syndrome is a rare, non-communicable disease that affects the movements of the hands and feet. In June last year, Peru had implemented a temporary health condition related to the discovery of several cases related to the syndrome.
In 1970, the vaccination program in the United States against the swine flu virus was also temporarily suspended because 450 of the people who were vaccinated had the syndrome, which can cause paralysis.
Sinopharm vaccine clinical trials involving 12 thousand people should be completed this week with results will be known in the middle of next year.
If proven successful, the Peruvian government will purchase 20 million doses of Sinopharm to vaccinate nearly two-thirds of their population.
Currently about 60 thousand people have been injected with the Sinopharm vaccine in clinical trials carried out in Argentina, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Peru itself is the country with the highest death rate per thousand population in the world, with a total of 36,499 deaths while the number of infected people exceeds 979 thousand.
(vws)
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