HEALTH CARE
Pfizer to Vaccinate Entire City in Brazil as Part of Study.
In the southwestern Brazilian city of Toledo, you won’t find much vaccine skepticism. About 98 percent of eligible residents there have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, according to municipal officials.
Most received the vaccine offered by Pfizer, and this week the drug maker said that presented an opportunity: Pfizer announced that it would fully vaccinate everyone in the city over the age of 12 so it can carry out a study of the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.
The company will work with local health officials, a hospital, a university and Brazil’s national vaccination program to monitor the transmission of the coronavirus in a “real-life scenario” after the whole population has been vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech serum, Pfizer said.
The study will follow participants for up to one year to investigate how long vaccine protection lasts against Covid-19 and new virus variants.
“Here we believe in science and we lament the almost 600,000 deaths from Covid-19 in Brazil,” Mayor Beto Lunitti of Toledo said in announcing the Pfizer study.
The study comes after the experimental inoculation of almost every adult in the southeastern Brazilian town of Serrana. That experiment was believed to be the first mass trial of its kind in which an entire town was vaccinated against the coronavirus before the rest of the country.
The experiment in Serrana was conducted over three months in winter and spring. Sinovac’s Covid-19 vaccine was put to the test in the town of 45,000. It was a resounding success, with steep drops in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths, at a time when the rest of Brazil was in the grip of the pandemic.
Brazil Coronavirus Map and Case Count
Brazil has suffered one of the world’s highest death tolls from the pandemic. About 600,000 people have died from Covid-19 in Brazil, according to a New York Times database. Though many experts believe the true death toll may be higher, that is the world’s second-highest death toll. More than 710,000 Americans have died.
Policy and Legislative Resilience: An Innovation for Nigeria’s Governance Moment
2027: APC and Nigeria’s “Carry Go” Democracy
Three Divorces Pronounced at Once: A Comparative Study of Classical Jurisprudence and Contemporary Islamic Law
-
EDITORIAL1 week agoIntroducing the AFRIEF Islamic Economic Renaissance Papers
-
ISLAMIC FINANCE & CAPITAL MARKETS2 weeks ago
Why the Muslim World Needs Venture Capital More Than More Banks
-
SPECIAL REPORTS2 weeks agoThe Cost of an Empty Classroom: Why Africa’s Out-of-School Crisis is an Economic Emergency
-
EDITORIAL2 weeks agoAfrica’s Greatest Development Emergency: One Hundred Million Children Out of School
-
ISLAMIC JURISPRUDENCE1 week agoThree Divorces Pronounced at Once: A Comparative Study of Classical Jurisprudence and Contemporary Islamic Law
-
EDITORIAL1 week agoEarthquakes Do Not Kill Cities—Weak Institutions Do
-
SPECIAL REPORTS1 week agoVenezuela’s Earthquake: Anatomy of a Modern Urban Disaster
-
POLITICS & GOVERNANCE5 days agoPolicy and Legislative Resilience: An Innovation for Nigeria’s Governance Moment