RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian health regulators said Tuesday they had approved Johnson & Johnson’s experimental vaccine against the new coronavirus for the final stage of clinical trials, the fourth vaccine to receive widespread testing in the hard-hit country.
The US pharmaceutical company’s subsidiary Janssen will test the vaccine on 7,000 volunteers across seven states in Brazil, part of a group of up to 60,000 worldwide, health regulator Anvisa said in a statement.
It said the test would be a randomized, controlled, double-blind Phase 3 trial, or large-scale testing on humans – the last step before regulatory approval.
Brazil has become a key testing ground in the search for a vaccine against COVID-19, since the virus is still spreading fast in the country.
The South American nation has the second-highest number of infections and deaths in the pandemic, after the United States.
The Brazilian state of Parana also signed a deal last week to test and produce Russia’s “Sputnik V” vaccine, which controversially became the first in the world to receive regulatory approval. (AFP)
