The victim was a 28-year-old male volunteer who lives in the city of Rio de Janeiro. This person died from complications of Covid-19.
Brazil’s national health watchdog declined to provide additional information due to the confidentiality of the test participants’ information. AstraZeneca declined to comment. However, Oxford University has confirmed that it will resume the testing process after careful assessment has been made and no concerns have been raised about the safety of the testing process.
Meanwhile, the Federal University of Sao Paulo, which helped coordinate phase 3 trials in Brazil, said the victim was a Brazilian citizen. A spokesperson for the university also said that an independent review committee will decide whether the trials will continue or not. The committee will include non-AstraZeneca members, universities in Brazil or the FioCruz Biomedical Research Center, where Covid-19 vaccine production is planned in Brazil.
There are currently 8,000 volunteers participating in the Phase 3 clinical trial in Brazil and these people have received the first 1 or 2 doses of the vaccine in six Brazilian cities.
Shares of AstraZeneca fell 1.8% after news of volunteer death.
Brazil is currently the world’s second largest Covid-19 outbreak with more than 154,000 deaths. The country also ranks third in the world after the US and India in terms of infection rate with 5.2 million cases.