Brazilian nurse Monica Calazans (L) receives the vaccine against COVID-19 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Jan. 17, 2021.(Xinhua/Rahel Patrasso)

Brazil's health authority has approved phase-III clinical trials for an inactivated vaccine developed by China, the third time a Chinese vaccine has been approved for such clinical trials in the country, following two others that were approved in April and July 2020.

The vaccine approved by the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa) was independently developed by the Institute of Medical Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, which is located in Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

The trial will evaluate the efficacy and safety of the vaccine in adults aged 18 and above. The vaccine will be given in two doses with an interval of 14 days between the first and the second dose.

The trial in Brazil is part of clinical trials of the vaccine being carried out in several countries and regions around the world, which will involve about 34,000 volunteers. There will be 7,992 volunteers in Brazil taking part in the trail, dividing into vaccine group and placebo group, according to the Anvisa on its official website.

The Anvisa said that there are still a large number of people in Brazil who have not received any COVID-19 vaccine, so recruitment of volunteers for the trial won't be a problem.

The vaccine was approved for emergency use in China on June 9, making it the 7th self-developed COVID-19 vaccine to be approved in China. The first batch of the vaccine started being used for inoculation in some counties in Yunnan Province

In April, a recombinant subunit protein vaccine developed by Clover Biopharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company based in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, was approved by Brazil for phase-III clinical trials.

Before that, an inactivated vaccine developed by Sinovac, a Beijing-based company, was approved for phase III clinical trials in Brazil in July, 2020.

According to the latest data released by the Brazilian ministry of health on Wednesday, 57,736 new cases were confirmed in Brazil. There were 1,556 new deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to 537,394.

As of 8:00 pm on Wednesday, more than 86.33 million people in Brazil have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, accounting for about 40.77 percent of its population. 15.17 percent of Brazilians have completed the inoculation, according to local media's calculation based on state health departments