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Brazilian biomedical institute denies claim linking Sinovac vaccine to "serious adverse event"
From CNN's Shasta Darlington in Sao Paulo
The Director of the Butantan Institute Dimas Covas speaks during a press conference at Butantan's headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on November 10.
Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images
The director of Brazil’s biomedical Butantan Institute, Dimas Covas, has said that a "serious, adverse event" suffered by a Sinovac vaccine trial volunteer was unrelated to the trial itself.
Brazilian health authorities halted the clinical trials of the Chinese vaccine on Monday after the event.
“The serious adverse event observed in a volunteer in the trial has no relation to the vaccine,” Covas said at a press conference in Sao Paulo Tuesday.
“It was analyzed and determined that there was no relation."
But he could not provide more details about the event or the volunteer, citing privacy reasons, insisting that regulators had all the information showing that the event was unrelated to the trial.
Chinese firm Sinovac began the Phase 3 clinical trial of its CoronaVac vaccine in collaboration with the Butantan Institute and the state of Sao Paulo in late July.
CoronaVac has been at the heart of a political feud between Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, who is expected to run against him in the country’s next presidential elections in 2022.
While Doria said he hopes to eventually vaccinate Sao Paulo state residents with CoronaVac, Bolsonaro has disparaged the vaccine and has backed a vaccine candidate produced by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
Covas said Tuesday that there was no reason to interrupt Sinovac's trial.
On Tuesday, Bolsonaro said on social media that with the suspension of the Sinovac trial the “president wins one.”
Separately, Sinovac said Brazil's decision to halt clinical trials was not due to the vaccine itself.