President Jair Bolsonaro has declared the suspension of a Brazilian trial for a Chinese covid vaccine as a "victory".
The trial was halted after a "severe adverse incident" - reported to be the death of a volunteer.
Brazilian health regulator Anvisa said the incident had taken place on 29 October but gave no further details.
However the head of the institute conducting the trials has told local media the person's death was not linked to the medical trial itself.
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'Another victory'[/SIZE]
President Bolsonaro has long criticised the vaccine because of its Chinese links and said it would not be purchased by his country. He has also engaged in a political fight with the governor of São Paulo, Joao Doria, who has publicly backed the trial.
Writing on Facebook, the president said the halt of the CoronaVac trial was "another victory for Jair Bolsonaro".
The vaccine, developed by Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech, is one of several in final-stage testing globally. Sinovac says it is "confident in the safety of the vaccine".
The firm has already been using it to immunise thousands of people at home in an emergency use programme.
Brazil has been one of the countries worst affected by coronavirus, recording more than 5.6m confirmed cases - the third highest tally in the world after the US and India - and nearly 163,000 deaths, according to data collated by Johns Hopkins University.
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Why was the trial halted?[/SIZE]
On Monday Anvisa said it had "ruled to interrupt the clinical trial of the CoronaVac vaccine after a serious adverse incident".
It did not reveal what had happened, nor where it had taken place. Late-stage trials for the Sinovac vaccine are also being conducted in Indonesia and Turkey, but neither of these countries have announced a suspension.
Indonesia's state-owned Bio Farma said on Tuesday that its own Sinovac vaccine trials were "going smoothly", according to Reuters news agency.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54883383
