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A significant case: Kexing(SINOVAC) vaccines saved a small town in Brazil

A significant case: Kexing (SINOVAC) vaccines saved a small town in Brazil. Brazil is one of the countries hardest hit by the COVID-19 epidemic, with the number of confirmed cases and deaths among the top three in the world. Moreover, the current situation is still grim.

On May 8, local time, according to data released by the Brazilian Ministry of Health, in the past 24 hours, there were 63,430 new confirmed cases of new coronavirus pneumonia in the country, with a total of 15,145,879 confirmed cases; 2202 new related deaths, and they have been consecutive There were more than 2,000 deaths in 52 days, with a total of 421,316 deaths.

According to data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, at present, more than 33.4 million people in Brazil have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, accounting for 15.77% of the total population; more than 17.04 million people have received the second dose, accounting for 8.05% of the total population.

Serana vaccination sites

However, in a small town 300 kilometers north of Sao Paulo State in southeastern Brazil, it seems to have become a “haven”. This small town called Serrana is not only picturesque, and sugarcane fields can be seen everywhere. It has the largest sugarcane sugar factory in Brazil, and more importantly, because of a project called “Projeto S (Plan S)” The project allowed people to see the light at the end of the tunnel: with the support of the Brazilian Butantin Institute, the mayor Léo Capitelli vaccinated almost all adults there (except pregnant and lactating women, and people with serious health problems) China Kexing’s COVID-19 vaccine has greatly flattened the local epidemic curve, making it “two different countries” from other places in Brazil.

A significant case: Kexing(SINOVAC) vaccines saved a small town in Brazil

According to Science News, the “Plan S” is to evaluate the effectiveness of Kexing’s COVID-19 vaccine in the real world, including its effectiveness against mutant viruses. A mutant strain called P.1 first appeared in the Amazon region of Brazil, and has now spread widely in Brazil and even other countries and regions in the world. There are indications that P.1 carries multiple mutations such as E484K, K417T, and N501Y, which have some similarities with the mutant strains found in the United Kingdom and South Africa, but it is more infectious and is considered to affect the effectiveness of the vaccine. . This real-world result provides valuable real-world data for the effectiveness of Kexing vaccine.

Serana has the perfect elements of “Plan S”. It is relatively small, with 45,600 residents, about 30,000 adults, and 15,000 people who need to travel long distances to work, so it has a highly mobile population. It is also located near an important public health research center, the Ribeirao Preto campus of the University of Sao Paulo. Moreover, the COVID-19 epidemic has clearly spread within the community. A study in July 2020 showed that 5% of the population carries the virus, that is, 1 in every 20 people, which is a very high rate.

Unlike many countries or regions, the residents of Serana are very willing to be vaccinated. When the project was launched on February 10, the team at the Butantan Institute set a goal of vaccinating at least 80% of adults in the town. Considering that Brazil has a good tradition of vaccination, the researchers believe that 80% is achievable.

The US “Wall Street Journal” reported on the 7th that local officials were quoted as saying that the surprise was that almost everyone agreed to vaccinate. By April 11th, 27,722 adult volunteers had received the first dose, and 27,160 (almost all of them) had received the second dose before the end of April. This means that 95.7% of Serana adults had received the first dose. Vaccination. Moreover, this is under the circumstances that Brazilian President Bolsonaro has repeatedly publicly denied the effectiveness of the vaccine.

“Plan S” project coordinator and director Marcos Borges said: “This experiment can help answer several important questions, such as’can people who have been vaccinated protect people who have not been vaccinated’ and’how long can their immunity last? , And what variant strains are circulating’,’We will eventually be able to observe the response of a large number of people to the vaccine in the real world.'”

Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist at the Federal University of Espirito Santo, said: “Plan S may be the best way to understand the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination in the short and medium term. This is particularly important because we don’t know when we can Most Brazilians get vaccinated.”

A preliminary study published on the preprint server MedRxiv on April 15 reported that in a phase III clinical trial involving 12,600 health care workers in Sao Paulo, the effectiveness of the Coxing vaccine was approximately two weeks after the second injection. Is 50%. Like other vaccines, Kexing vaccine provides good protection against death and severe COVID-19.

However, clinical trials and real world examples are two different things. Ernesto Marques, a virologist at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States, said: “For example, an immune neighbor may have a major impact on the actual effectiveness of the vaccine.”

Since most adults in Serana are vaccinated

Currently, Project S has produced some gratifying early results. According to local media reports, the number of new infections dropped from 28 on March 20 to 7 one month later. The proportion of severe cases dropped from a peak of 70% in March this year to 10% in early April.

According to the Sao Paulo State Government, during the project vaccination period from mid-February to mid-April, 6 people died of new coronavirus pneumonia after vaccination. Five of them received only one dose, and another developed symptoms shortly after the second dose. Researchers believe that the patient had been infected before the second dose. Among those who were not vaccinated, 14 died.

At the beginning of May, none of the six beds in the Santa Casa Hospital in Serana and the local basic medical care unit were occupied, and the number of people waiting in line in the infirmary and intensive care unit has dropped to zero. According to the Serana Health Secretariat, as of May 3, there is still one inpatient in the infirmary and nine patients in the intensive care unit.

Officials and residents of the town of Serana said that so far, they feel the results are “exciting.” Compared with the peak of the epidemic in March, the infection rate has dropped by 75%. Among those who completed the vaccination, there were no deaths, indicating that the Koxing vaccine was effective against the P.1 mutant strain that swept the region. The mayor of Serana, Léo Capitelli, said: “The data speak for themselves, it (the experiment) succeeded!”

According to the local health secretariat, the number of confirmed cases peaked in January 2021, with 706 urban residents infected with the new coronavirus pneumonia. Subsequently, the number of confirmed cases dropped to 484 and 692 in February and March, respectively, and dropped sharply to 235 in April.

Marques said that all of these are clearly “the impact of vaccination, but we need to be more cautious when linking all these changes to mass immunization.” He added: “We are still studying, and when we get the results, we will Able to determine whether these events are related.”

Juliana Elaga is the first person in Serana to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and she is sure this is the way out. She said: “I have suffered a lot during this pandemic, and vaccination is a very exciting time for me. After the second dose, I feel really relieved. Even though I still adopt social isolation and wear The way the mask is used, my heart is calmer.” Her 8-year-old child is a witness: “Mom used to wear two masks at the same time and wiped her hands with alcohol gel. Now she seems to be more normal, no Worry again.”

Plan S will continue to track local residents for one year. To answer questions such as how long the vaccine can provide protection, this is essential to help Brazilians and other countries in the world find a way out of the COVID-19 epidemic.

(source:internet, reference only)

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