China’s CoronaVac may be ineffective against new Brazilian Covid19 Variant – a recent study states
Amid an aggressive spread of the new COVID-19 strain from the Amazon in Brazil, a recent preliminary study has provided evidence that China’s CoronaVac, the country’s principal vaccine, might prove ineffective against the coronavirus variant.
The study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, was designed to test how antibodies created either by vaccination or by previous infections from other versions of COVID-19 respond when faced with the new strain.
Plasma collected from eight people vaccinated five months ago with CoronaVac ‘failed to efficiently neutralise’ the Amazonian variant of the virus, called P1, according to the study conducted by researchers from Brazil, the UK and the US.
The nation having a population of around 212 million is facing its worst Covid wave ever since the virus first hit the country last year. Brazil is seeing more Covid deaths and cases than ever before and hence its hospitals are filled to the brim and overflowing.
Brazil has broken its own record three times this month for number of deaths in a 24-hour period. On Wednesday, Brazil’s Health Ministry registered a new high record of – 2,286 lives lost to the virus. In total, more than 270,000 people are known to have died due to Covid-19, making Brazil’s the second-highest national death toll after the United States.
“The health system in Brazil is on the verge of collapse,” Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria said during a recent interview. “There is no national coordination to combat the pandemic in Brazil. It would be important for the President and the governors to send the same message to the population, but this unfortunately, doesn’t happen in Brazil.
