- Title: 'I was motivated to help' -Brazil volunteers step up to test COVID-19 vaccine
- Date: 14th July 2020
- Summary: COVID-19 PATIENT IN BED
- Embargoed: 28th July 2020 19:27
- Keywords: Brazil COVID-19 cases clinical trials coronavirus cure disease infected outbreak pandemic sick subjects test vaccine
- Location: SAO PAULO, RIO DE JANEIRO & BRASILIA, BRAZIL
- City: SAO PAULO, RIO DE JANEIRO & BRASILIA, BRAZIL
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA003CMS98P3
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Brazilian physician Vinicius Campos is part of perhaps the most important scientific endeavor in the world today: the hunt for a vaccine against the novel coronavirus.
Dr. Campos is one of 2,000 volunteers in Brazil's largest city of Sao Paulo taking part in mass human trials for the experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc. It is one of the brightest hopes in the global bid to contain the virus.
Developers and researchers are looking to places like Brazil, where the new coronavirus is still spreading fast, to test potential vaccines.
With nearly 1.9 million cases, Brazil has the world's second-worst outbreak behind only the United States. More than 72,000 people have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, in Brazil.
So-called Phase III trials, involving thousands of human volunteers, began last month in Brazil for the Oxford vaccine.
Volunteers have to record their temperature once a day, fill in an online diary about their condition and attend periodic consultations. Participants, who will be monitored of a year, do not know if they have been given the vaccine or a placebo.
(Production: Pablo Garcia, Sergio Queiroz, Leonardo Benassatto) - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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