Chinese coronavirus vaccine may be released at the end of the year

The new secretary of health of the state of São Paulo, Jean Gorinchteyn said on the morning of Wednesday (22) that the Chinese vaccine against coronavirus can be released emergencyly at the end of this year, if the tests with volunteers are successful. Gorinchteyn took over the portfolio on Tuesday (21) in place of José Henrique Germann.
"When we live in a situation that we call pandemic, which is an epidemic on every continent of the world, we come to have an emergency need for vaccines," he said.
The secretary cited the high number of cases in municipalities across the country. "We have not yet controlled the epidemic in our midst. Thus, having a vaccine is essential. Based on this, if in the next 3 months this level of antibodies is high, and more than that, they remain stabilized, quite possibly the regulatory bodies, such as Anvisa, will release in an emergency way, and, thus, the first group of patients would already receive this vaccine. Maybe in December even or possibly, quite possibly, already from January. All these prospecting will depend on these tests", he said.
The third phase of tests in Brazil began on Tuesday (21) at the Hospital das Clínicas, in São Paulo. Altogether, 9,000 health professionals are expected to participate in the tests in the states of São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Brasília. This is the third phase of the vaccine.
In São Paulo, 890 health professionals will be tested. Volunteers will be accompanied by a scientific team for three months. After the first dose is applied, volunteers will receive a second dose of the vaccine 14 days later.
Asked if the return to face-to-face classes will take place on September 8, Jean Gorinchteyn again said that it will depend on monitoring the regions that should remain for 28 days in the same phase of flexibilization of the plan to reopen the economy.
"What we have seen is that still some regions have receded. In order to maintain the prediction of the start of school in September, the 17 health regions must be yellow. If only one of them is orange, that doesn't happen. We need to have 17 health areas maintained for 28 days. We have to make sure no region can go backwards. We can't put children at risk primarily," he explained.
On Tuesday, Jean said he will work closer to the municipalities that record increased cases of Covid-19 in the state.
"From the moment we're taking any risk in some particular city, surely representing the state government, I'll be going there to be able to understand. What are we missing? Why are people dying? Why qualify for assistance? What's missing? Did you miss an ICU bed? Missed prevention strategies? All this will surely be things that we will be doing. I'm going to be a cabinet secretary, but a secretary of proactive conduct representing the state government in these municipalities because that's what the population expects from the state government," said the new Secretary of Health.
Jean Gorinchteyn also pointed out that municipalities that record an increase in confirmed cases of deaths by Covid-19 should redouble care to avoid agglomerations that the reopening of economic sectors can enable.
"Certainly, both mayors and municipal health secretaries should create strategies to prevent large agglomerations. And large agglomerations stem from much wider and much faster reopening. We cannot, in any way, make that especially these municipalities that have a rise in the number of cases are putting their citizens at risk", he said.
Jean Gorinchteyn is an infectologist at Albert Einstein and São Camilo hospitals, and at the Emílio Ribas Institute of Infectious Diseases, graduated from Mogi das Cruzes University, master's degree in infectious diseases, phD student in experimental neurology from Unifesp, with more than 20 years of experience as a doctor and professor.