SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Sinovac Biotech’s vaccine against COVID-19 is over 50% effective in late-stage trials, newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Wednesday, adding that the Chinese company had asked the Brazilian institute running tests to wait up to 15 days before publishing their full results.
The Butantan Institute, which is running the trial in Brazil, and the government of Sao Paulo, which oversees the institute, declined to comment, saying there would be more details in a news conference at 4 p.m. local time.
If researchers hold back the full results, it would be the third time the institute has done so, after originally promising to provide efficacy data in early December. Any delay would represent a setback in Beijing’s efforts to catch up with Western drugmakers in the battle to rein in the pandemic.
Sinovac would be the second Chinese vaccine maker to produce results from late-stage clinical trials, after United Arab Emirates said this month that a vaccine from a Beijing-based unit of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) has 86% efficacy.
Rival products developed by AstraZeneca Plc, Pfizer and Moderna generated positive results with more details in November.
(Reporting by Gabriel Araujo and Pedro FonsecaWriting by Gabriel StargardterEditing by Brad Haynes and Sonya Hepinstall)
