Coronavirus: Brazil’s spat over vaccine from China is more about politics than health policy

Row between Brazilian president and Sao Paulo governor escalates after suspension of late-stage CoronaVac trials

Research institute chief accuses health regulator of stoking fear among the public

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Sinovac Biotech has stood by the safety of its Covid-19 vaccine after Brazilian regulators halted trials. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:59pm, 11 Nov 2020Updated: 11:34pm, 11 Nov 2020

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said the move by the country’s health regulator to suspend local trials of a Covid-19 vaccine made by China’s Sinovac Biotech was a “victory” over his political rival João Doria, the governor of São Paulo who has backed the Chinese company.

Bolsonaro and Doria have had a series of public rows over the experimental CoronaVac vaccine since the president last month cancelled a deal made by the Ministry of Health and the state of São Paulo for 46 million doses of it. Doria, who plans to run for the presidency in 2022, said at the time that Bolsonaro’s decision was criminal.

The president, known as “Trump of the Tropics” for his populist platform, said Brazilians were being used as guinea pigs for CoronaVac and questioned its safety. The regulator suspended the trials following the death of a participant, which is a standard procedure but one that the president used to attack his rival.

“Death, disablement, anomaly. This is the vaccine that Doria wants to force the people of São Paulo to take,” Bolsonaro said on Tuesday.

Local media, citing a police investigation, reported that the death of the participant on October 29, a 32-year-old male who was not named, was being treated as a suspected suicide. While this suggests the suspension of the vaccine trials may soon be lifted, Brazilian medical authorities were putting out conflicting messages on Tuesday.

Dimas Covas, president of the São Paulo-based Instituto de Butantan, the research body working with Sinovac to test and eventually produce CoronaVac, said trials could resume this week. He told a press conference the health regulator, known as Anvisa, was aware the participant’s death was not related to the vaccine.

“Anvisa has all the information and I tell you the conclusion of their report is this: the adverse event was analysed and it is unrelated to the vaccine,” he said.