Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa suspended clinical trials of a Chinese firm’s coronavirus vaccine after an unspecified “adverse incident” involving a volunteer recipient late last month. Anvisa would only say such incidents could involve a death or serious disability resulting in hospitalization. Anvisa’s action with the CoronaVac vaccine occurred the same day a rival, U.S. pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, announced its vaccine has shown 90 percent effectiveness. Word of Pfizer’s vaccine success sent global financial markets soaring. Both the Pfizer and the Chinese Sinovac vaccine are in Phase III trials, the last stage of testing before regulators give it clearance for public use. Brazil has the highest coronavirus tally in Latin America, with more than 5,664,000 confirmed cases and 162,397 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University and Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center.
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