Brazil begins immunizing entire town in Covid-19 study

SERRANA, Brasil - The Brazilian town of Serrana on Wednesday began immunizing its entire adult population, the first such clinical mass vaccination trial in one of the worst affected countries in the world from the coronavirus pandemic.

The campaign to vaccinate 30,000 of the town's 50,000 population will allow authorities to analyze the impact of immunization on the pandemic, a second wave of which has swept over the country of 212 million.

With the exception of pregnant and breastfeeding women, and those who are ill, every adult in the city some 300 kilometers (190 miles) from Sao Paulo will receive two doses of the CoronaVac jab within a two month period.

The initiative has been launched by the Butantan institute under patronage of Sao Paulo state.

The institute is producing the CoronaVac vaccine that was developed by Chinese firm Sinovac and alongside the AstraZaneca/Oxford vaccine is one of only two to have received authorization in Brazil.

"It's not a simple mass vaccination. The aim of the study is to see how effective the vaccination is in a community and with that to identify the collective efficacy of the vaccination of individuals," said Ricardo Palacios, clinical studies director at Butantan.

Some 60,000 doses of the vaccine have been set aside for the campaign.

Butantan director Dimas Covas said Serrana was chosen because it's a small town in the interior with good health care infrastructure, but where the contamination rate of 5,248 per 100,000 inhabitants is the highest in Sao Paulo state.

Serrana has recorded more than 2,300 cases and 52 deaths from Covid-19. Brazil has registered almost 10 million cases and over 240,000 deaths.

Yet in just over one month, more than 5.5 million Brazilians -- 2.6 percent of the population -- have been immunized.

Several towns, though, have had to suspend their immunization programs due to a lack of vaccine doses.

AFP