Technical note from the civil society organization Oxfam Brasil draws attention to the country’s lack of self-sufficiency in producing vaccines. According to the document Vaccine Production Capacity in Brazil, released this Wednesday (25), Brazil imports 90% of the raw materials to manufacture vaccines and medicines and 50% to produce medical equipment.
The note highlights, however, that Brazil has leading institutions in vaccine production, such as the Bio-Manguinhos Institute, from Fiocruz, and the Butantan Institute, which is the tenth largest vaccine producer in the world.
“However, the country is far from being self-sufficient: while China has more than a thousand factories producing IFA24 [matéria-prima das vacinas], in Brazil this number is around 15”, says the document. “Today the world is at the mercy of trends in the relationship between China, the United States and Europe, especially amid tensions surrounding the war between Russia and Ukraine,” he adds.
The Oxfam report highlights that the Unified Health System (SUS) is overloaded, with around half a million people in line to undergo elective procedures, and warns that the country needs to prepare for new demands in the future, such as new outbreaks. of infectious diseases.
“Vaccination has strongly reduced Covid-19 infections, but experts fear new outbreaks and warn of the danger of reducing demand for booster doses. At the same time, there is a need to prepare the health system for future events that may put pressure on the demand for care, such as the aging of the population expected in the coming decades and climate change.”
The report can be read in full on the Oxfam website.
