Brazil completes a month of slow vaccination against covid-19

Despite having a world-famous mass vaccination system, Brazil has only vaccinated just over 2% of its 212 million inhabitants against the coronavirus after the first month of a weak immunization campaign.

In the absence of clear guidelines from the government of Jair Bolsonaro, the states and cities were left to their own devices, facing many setbacks, fraud and even the suspension of vaccination as occurred in Rio de Janeiro or Salvador, in the absence of doses of the immunizer.

Some 5.2 million people have already received the first dose of the vaccine and less than 250,000 the second in the second country in the world most mourned by the coronavirus, with 239,773 deaths from covid-19.

Brazil began vaccination several weeks after the United States, a large part of the European countries and even Argentina and Chile.

Despite the fact that the South American giant has managed to vaccinate twice as many people as France, for example, which began injecting much earlier, experts estimate that Brazil could be immunizing its population faster, given its experience.

A test of this muscle to vaccinate occurred in 2010 when “more than 80 million people were vaccinated against H1N1 in three months,” epidemiologist Ethel Maciel, from the Federal University of Espirito Santo (Ufes), tells AFP.

For Maciel, part of the problem is in the management of the current Minister of Health, Eduardo Pazuello, an Army general with no experience in the field.

“We have excellent professionals working in the area of ​​vaccination in Brazil, but the people who are above them are military, mostly inexperienced,” he laments.

– “Criminal” management –

The government’s lack of planning and the diplomatic tensions stemming from controversial statements by the far-right president -particularly about China- have earned Brazil a series of hardships to import the first doses and the supplies needed to manufacture them locally.

To date, the health regulator Anvisa has only authorized the emergency use of two vaccines, the Chinese CoronaVac and the British AstraZeneca.

Only 12 million doses were available when the vaccination campaign began. However, the government expects to have 210.4 million AstraZeneca vaccines until the end of the year and 100 million from CoronaVac until August.

Brazil should have diversified its vaccine menu more, instead of betting “all its chips on the same number,” defends Maciel, who sees the fact that President Bolsonaro constantly minimizes the health crisis as “criminal.”

“We have a president as the main protagonist of an anti-vaccination campaign, saying that he is not going to be vaccinated or that vaccines can turn people into crocodiles (…) it generates doubts in people,” adds the epidemiologist, who signed one of the numerous impeachment requests filed against the president.

– A worrying variant –

The lack of doses “prevents us from carrying out mass vaccination as we know how to do it,” explains microbiologist Natalia Pasternak, from the University of Sao Paulo (USP).

And time is short because of the variant of the coronavirus detected in the Amazon and that has already begun to spread throughout the country. According to experts, this mutation of the virus, which is suspected to be more contagious, could be the cause of the collapse in the state of Amazonas (north).

“The more we let the virus circulate, the more mutations can appear,” adds Pasternak, underlining the urgency of “accelerating vaccination” and strengthening the “sequencing of new variants.”

The specialists also point out absurd situations derived from the little guidance from the Ministry of Health on the vaccination of priority groups.

“In my state, only the elderly over 90 were vaccinated. But [también hay] physical education students, 20-year-olds, being vaccinated, “says Maciel.

Then there are those who managed to get vaccinated earlier due to their connections and influences.

Despite all these dysfunctions, the Health Ministry assures that all Brazilians will be immunized “before the end of the year.” As of February 22, it plans to accelerate vaccination, starting in Amazonas, which would be the first state to achieve immunization of its entire population.

“It is possible that in principle we will have sufficient doses, but I think it is difficult for us to manage that until the end of the year. We would need a very radical change in the management of the ministry,” concludes epidemiologist Guilherme Werneck, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro ( Uerj).

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