Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa on Monday accused China’s health authorities of not being transparent in their authorisation of COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use.
The country’s president Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly cast doubt on the CoronaVac vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac. Beijing has not made public details of how it determines whether a coronavirus vaccine is qualified for emergency use.
“Brazil is the international leader in the evaluation process for CoronaVac. The vaccine has had an emergency use authorisation in China since June of this year. The Chinese criteria for granting emergency use authorization are not transparent, and there is no available information about the criteria currently in use by Chinese authorities to make these decisions”, Anvisa said in a statement.
In October, a Chinese health official said the emergency inoculation was launched after stringent reviews and in accordance with the country’s laws and World Health Organization’s rules. He added that these vaccines showed “very good safety and immunogenicity readings in Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials”.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Tuesday said that China had been attaching “great importance” to the safety and efficacy of its vaccines.
CoronaVac is undergoing Phase 3 testing in Sao Paulo, but the state will not be able to use the vaccine until it is approved by Anvisa.
