Brazil­ian vol­un­teer in As­traZeneca Covid-19 vac­cine tri­al has died in the place­bo arm — re­ports

A vol­un­teer in As­traZeneca’s Covid-19 vac­cine tri­al in Brazil has died, Brazil­ian health au­thor­i­ties said Wednes­day, trig­ger­ing fresh alarms over the fu­ture of the Ox­ford pro­gram. But lat­er re­ports not­ed that the death was in the place­bo group and As­traZeneca is­sued word that there were no con­cerns about con­tin­u­ing the study.

The Brazil­ian health agency An­visa said it had re­ceived da­ta from an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the is­sue, per a Reuters re­port. The re­port was then up­dat­ed cit­ing a source fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter say­ing that the tri­al would have been sus­pend­ed had the vol­un­teer been giv­en the ex­per­i­men­tal Covid-19 vac­cine, im­ply­ing that they were part of the place­bo arm.

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