RÍO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Brazil, a nation proud of its role as a regional leader in science, technology and medicine, is lagging behind its neighbors in the global race for immunization against a pandemic that has already claimed its lives. of about 200,000 of its inhabitants.
Latin America’s largest nation, long hailed for its vaccine development programs, appears to be at least three to four weeks away from launching any formal immunization campaign against COVID-19. In contrast, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica and other countries in the region have already begun to vaccinate their citizens.
The Brazilian government has not authorized any vaccine and has stumbled in its attempts to buy even syringes and needles for an immunization campaign that has not yet had a definitive start date.
Meanwhile, the number of new cases of coronavirus in the country broke another record in December, with more than 70,000 infections on December 16.
The focus in the debate on vaccines in Brazil is on the president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has been skeptical about all those that are being developed, although his government is negotiating to obtain them. He said he has no plans to get vaccinated and joked that the side effects could turn people into crocodiles or bearded women.
This type of statement has left “very damaged” the image of Brazil abroad, Margareth Dalholm, a professor of respiratory medicine at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, also known as Fiocruz and which is funded by the state, told The Associated Press.
“Nobody says that Bolsonaro really believes this, but he is discrediting the vaccine,” said Walter Cintra, a professor of health management at the Getulio Vargas Foundation University in Sao Paulo. “When the government behaves like this, it loses credibility. And these are million dollar contracts. “
One of the first vaccines on the horizon appears to be one developed by the Chinese company Sinovac, which has a contract with the government of the country’s largest state, Sao Paulo, for its distribution and production.
Sao Paulo Governor João Doria announced plans to begin administering the vaccine on January 25 if federal authorities approve it. Doria is a prominent critic of the president and a possible rival in the 2022 elections, and his announcement increased pressure on the Bolsonaro government to come up with its own federal immunization plan.
At first, the president mocked the Chinese vaccine, claiming that its origin did not inspire confidence, but other states were quick to show interest in acquiring it.
Another candidate for an early distribution at the national level would be the one developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, which could be available in early February once regulators give it the green light, according to the state laboratory Fiocruz, which produces it in Brazil.
Fiocruz is one of the largest public laboratories in Brazil for the production of vaccines, including those for measles, polio and yellow fever. Thanks to advanced technology and Fiocruz’s ability to produce at low cost, Brazil is the world’s leading manufacturer of yellow fever vaccines, exporting millions of doses to dozens of countries, according to the institution’s data.
Fiocruz said it expects to have 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, of which two doses are needed per person, by the end of July.
The government also expects to receive 42 million doses from the global COVAX vaccine alliance, something for which there is no date, and has signed an agreement with Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, for 38 million doses of a single injection vaccine when is available.
The executive has tried to close an agreement for the first vaccine approved worldwide, that of Pfizer-BioNTech. Pfizer complained in late December about regulatory hurdles in the country, while Bolsonaro was surprised that pharmaceutical companies did not show more enthusiasm to sell their product in a nation of nearly 210 million people.
Tensions appeared to ease at a meeting between regulators and Pfizer on Dec. 30, during which authorities said they would simplify protocols and the drugmaker said it would consider applying for approval for emergency use. The Brazilian government and Pfizer had earlier signed a memorandum of understanding for 70 million doses, according to the Health Ministry.
For Professor Cintra, the confusion surrounding the approval of the vaccine is symptomatic of the chaotic government management of the pandemic, during which Bolsonaro has repeatedly denounced the efforts of local authorities to impose norms of social distancing and described the virus as a “flu.”
“It is not about Anvisa (the regulator) or excessive regulation. It is about the federal government systematically sabotaging the fight against the pandemic or completely destroying the Brazilian health system, “he added.
Cintra also highlighted that a public tender for the purchase of more than 330 million syringes and needles for the coronavirus vaccination campaign this week resulted in offers for only 8 million units within the acceptable price range, less than 3% of what was required.
The Ministry of Health explained in a statement that it will keep the tender open.
“There is a real risk of having a vaccine but there are not enough needles and syringes,” warned Carlos Eduardo Lula, president of a council of state health secretaries.
The president of the country’s Bar Association, Felipe Santa Cruz, told Valor newspaper that further delays in the vaccination program could lead the group to draft a petition for impeachment against Bolsonaro.
For Francisco Ferreira, a 55-year-old physics teacher, the hope of having a vaccine soon is fading.
“Brazil is having a mixture of bad faith and incompetence on the vaccine issue,” Ferreira said as he walked through the international airport in Sao Paulo. “There are serious governments around the world that are administering vaccines, but this is not our case.”
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Savarese reported from Sao Paulo. The Associated Press video reporter Tatiana Pollastri contributed to this report.
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