RIO DE JANEIRO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th March, 2021) China's Coronavac vaccine against COVID-19 is effective against two strains of the coronavirus detected in Brazil, the Instituto Butantan biologic research center that took part in developing the drug said.
"Preliminary data show that the vaccine against COVID-19 developed by Instituto Butantan can resist the P.1 (from the Amazonas region) and P.2 (from Rio de Janeiro) strains," the institute said on Wednesday in a statement.
The spread of new strains of the coronavirus has resulted in a new spike of positive cases in the Latin American nation that registered the record number - 2,286 - fatalities within the past 24 hours.
The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. To date, more than 117.98 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 2.61 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Brazil has confirmed more than 11.2 million COVID-19 cases so far, with over 270,000 fatalities.
