Governor João Doria of the Brazilian state of São Paulo has said he expects this week permission from the federal regulator to begin trials in the state of a Chinese-developed vaccine against the Covid-19 virus, called CoronaVac, Reuters reports.
The news agency quotes Mr Doria as telling a press conference on Monday that 9,000 people in São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state, have volunteered to try out the vaccine.
The trials will be the outcome of an agreement by a Brazilian biomedical research centre, the Butantan Institute, and the developer of the vaccine, Sinovac Biotech Ltd of China, Reuters says.
Last month the Brazilian state-run news agency, Agência Brasil, quoted Mr Doria as saying that if the vaccine proved effective, it could be mass-produced in São Paulo and administered to millions of Brazilians free of charge.
