Brazil develops it’s own national COVID-19 Vaccine called “BUTANVAC.”

The first Brazilian national COVID-19 vaccine has been developed by Butantan institute which is linked to São Paulo state’s government according to the announcement made by the state Governor, Joao Doria, on March 26.

“This is a historic announcement for Brazil and the world. ButanVac is the first 100% national vaccine, fully developed and produced in Brazil by the Butantan Institute, which is a pride of Brazil. It is 120 years old, the largest producer of vaccines in the Southern Hemisphere, Brazil and Latin America and now placing itself internationally as a producer of vaccine against COVID-19,” said the Governor.

Significantly, the results of pre-clinical tests carried out on animals have shown promise, which allows to evolve to clinical studies in humans and the expectation is for the clinical trials of phases 1 and 2 in humans with the new immunizer will start as early as April, after authorization by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency).

It is very important to note that
ButanVac will be a vaccine developed and produced entirely in Butantan, without the need to import IFA (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient) and thus making Butantan institute responsible for 85% of the total capacity, and being committed to providing the vaccine to Brazil and to low and middle income countries and the pilot production of the compound has already been completed for application to human volunteers during the tests.

In addition, Butantan’s CEO, Dimas Covas says that the ButanVac vaccine will be delivered and available even later this year 2021 and that would be a good news for the country which is passing through a very difficult situation as the daily numbers of COVID-19 victims continue to rise in its thousands.

Indeed, the technology used in ButanVac is that acquired from CoronaVac, a vaccine developed in partnership with Sinovac biopharmaceutical company, which is already available to the Brazilian people.

“We understand the need to expand the production capacity for vaccines against coronavirus and the urgency of Brazil and other developing countries to receive the product from an institution with the credibility of Butantan. Due to the global scenario, we have opened the range of options to offer governments one more way to contribute to the control of the pandemic in the country and in the world,” says Dimas.

By Niyi Fote /Thenews2