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Vaccine test against Corona (symbol picture)
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A test person died during the study of a corona vaccine by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in Brazil.
This was confirmed by the Brazilian health surveillance authority, Anvisa, to the German press agency on Wednesday.
Brazilian media had previously reported on it.
The British-Swedish company had developed the possible vaccine in collaboration with Oxford University.
According to its own information, Anvisa had already been informed of this on Monday.
The recommendation is to continue testing.
The case is currently being examined and data on volunteers must be treated confidentially.
According to the television station "CNN Brasil", the dead is a 28-year-old man from Rio de Janeiro who died of complications related to Covid-19.
The Brazilian newspaper "O Globo" reported, citing sources that did not want to be named for legal reasons, that the volunteer in question had received a placebo rather than the vaccine.
This was also reported by the Reuters news agency.
Initially, neither the laboratory nor the test centers nor Anvisa officially commented on this question.
Oxford University confirmed that it would continue the tests.
In a statement, the university stated that after careful assessment, "there were no concerns about the safety of the clinical trial."
Citing an anonymous source familiar with the subject, Reuters reported that the study would not continue if the deceased had received the potential vaccine.
AstraZeneca had to suspend study in September
AstraZeneca temporarily stopped the clinical trial for its promising corona vaccine in September - apparently not for the first time.
Up until then, the AZD1222 vaccine was one of the promising candidates among the potential corona vaccines.
Should the death of the volunteer be linked to the vaccine, it would be a major blow to the project.
The vaccine is currently being examined by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in a so-called rolling review process.
In this process, data from the clinical trial is continuously submitted and evaluated.
The EU has already signed a framework agreement with AstraZeneca for the delivery of vaccination doses.
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ptz / dpa / Reuters
