Vaccination against COVID-19 in Brazil is still sluggish and the campaign started late four months ago could be again hampered by delays in the import of active ingredients to manufacture new doses.
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Under a parliamentary investigation, the Bolsonaro government is accused of having its share of responsibility in these delays, because of diplomatic tensions with China and refusal of vaccine offers.
Some 35 million Brazilians have received at least one dose, or 16% of the population. This is too little to have a real impact in a country where nearly 435,000 lives have been killed by the virus.
“The doses we currently have do not allow us to vaccinate at the desired rate,” explains pulmonologist Margareth Dalcolmo, from Fiocruz, a benchmark public health institute, to AFP.
“We should already be able to vaccinate young people, they are the ones who circulate the virus. […] More than 70% of the population must be vaccinated to limit this spread and prevent the appearance of new variants, ”she adds.
But Brazil must first immunize the 80 million people considered to be priorities, including the elderly, healthcare workers and indigenous populations.
Even if the doses are delivered in small quantities, the government assures that all adults will be vaccinated by the end of the year.
Worrying delays
For Margareth Dalcolmo, Brazil, known for its experience in mass vaccination, is capable of it. But “not at the current rate” because for that “it would be necessary to vaccinate 2 million people per day”, while the country has rarely exceeded one million daily vaccinations.
“The situation is more favorable than at the beginning of the year, but we are far from the ideal”, adds Joao Viola, president of the scientific committee of the Brazilian Society of Immunology.
The hope of finally seeing vaccination accelerate was fueled by the arrival of the first batches of the vaccine from Pfizer / BioNTech. But that’s only about 2 million of the 100 million doses ordered in March.
Stocks could have been much larger if Brasilia had accepted offers from Pfizer in August for staggered deliveries of more than 70 million doses. The moment when President Jair Bolsonaro quipped about side effects that could “turn into a crocodile”.
Some 1.5 million doses could even have been delivered in December, information confirmed Thursday by the boss of Pfizer Latin America during the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry.
“Global demand is very high and those who entered into agreements late, like Brazil, end up being delivered after the others,” said Joao Viola.
The vaccination campaign began in mid-January, a month after the United States and most European countries, with two vaccines: that of Oxford / AstraZeneca and CoronaVac, from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac.
These two vaccines have the advantage of being manufactured in Brazil, but the country still depends on the import of active ingredients from China, with many delays in deliveries.
Diplomatic issues
The Butantan Institute of Sao Paulo, responsible for the manufacture and distribution of CoronaVac, which represents more than 70% of the doses already injected in Brazil, announced the interruption of its production on Friday, its stocks of active ingredients being exhausted.
This institute fears that “diplomatic problems” prevent the delivery of new doses in June. Fiocruz, which produces AstraZeneca’s vaccine in Rio de Janeiro, also announced that production could be halted next week.
“There are already 10,000 liters of Sinovac raw material ready to ship, all that is needed is the authorization from the Chinese government. But any inappropriate remarks towards China are a new obstacle for this authorization ”, deplored the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, fierce opponent of President Bolsonaro earlier this week.
After repeatedly criticizing “Doria’s Chinese vaccine”, the head of state added fuel to the fire last week, insinuating that China created the virus “in the laboratory” to wage a “war bacteriological”.
Brazil’s dependence on China is not expected to end until September, when vaccines can finally be made from locally produced active ingredients.
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