Dimas Covas, president of the Butantan Institute of Brazil, said in an interview with the news agency, Xinhua, that “China’s COVID-19 vaccines have shown great results in preventing death and severe cases, as well as reducing hospitalization rates.”
A new standard for the evaluation of a vaccine during the pandemic should be created to replace the existing efficacy criterion that places too much emphasis on preventing infection rates, Dimas Covas said.
The latter indicated that a series of studies carried out by the Butantan Institute for more than a year. With a history of 120 years, this establishment is one of the most prestigious scientific centers in Brazil.
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“Since some Western media places too much emphasis on preventing infection rates when evaluating Covid-19 vaccines and underestimating their function of preventing death and severe cases”, Dimas Covas indicated that “the existing rules are more suited to the evaluation of vaccines developed during an epidemic rather than during a pandemic”.
“The performance of Sinovac’s Chinese COVID-19 vaccine is ‘excellent’ as it has drastically reduced the number of hospitalizations, especially among the elderly and healthcare professionals, showing that it is ‘is an excellent vaccine’, he said.
Since June 2020, the Butantan Institute and the Chinese biopharmaceutical laboratory Sinovac Biotech have carried out several studies, the most important of which is the phase III clinical trial of the latter’s vaccine, which involved more than 10,000 volunteers.
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According to Dimas Covas, the CoronaVac vaccine from Sinovac has shown its “Excellent performance” in the prevention of COVID-19-related deaths and severe cases. Another important vaccine study was carried out in Serrana, a small town in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo.
The results announced at the end of May last showed that, compared to data from the start of the trial, the number of new symptomatic cases of Covid-19 in the city fell by 80% after the completion of the full vaccination, hospitalizations fell 86% and disease-related deaths fell 95%.
“The results of this study show that once the adult population is vaccinated, unvaccinated people will also benefit, such as children and adolescents in Serrana”, explained Dimas Covas, quoted by the news agency, Xinhua.
Safety is another important evaluation criterion. Indeed, the side effects of vaccines are one of the main concerns of people who are vaccinated.. In this regard, “Of all the vaccines used in Brazil, the CoronaVac vaccine is the safest”, he said.
The availability of vaccines cannot be ignored when evaluating performance and effect during a pandemic. Dimas Covas reported that the Butantan Institute and Sinovac brought the CoronaVac vaccine to Brazil in early 2021.
“In the early days of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese vaccines played an important role, especially for the most vulnerable people, such as those over the age of 60 and medical personnel”, he testified.
