RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The lack of raw materials for the manufacture of covid-19 antidotes in Brazil is once again threatening the continuity of vaccination in the South American giant, where the rate of immunizations has plummeted by about 60% in two weeks.
The two covid vaccines that have been most widely used in the country are produced on Brazilian soil with raw materials from China, which are already becoming scarce in the country.
The Butantan Institute in São Paulo, which has delivered 60% of the antidotes for the vaccination campaign in the country, suspended as of this Friday the production of the vaccine developed by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac due to the lack of raw material produced in the Asian country.
Butantan is waiting for the Chinese Government to authorize the export of a batch of 10,000 liters of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) – an input without which the immunizer cannot be produced in Brazil -, an amount which would be used to manufacture about 18 million antidotes.
According to the Institute, at least 3,000 liters of API were expected for this Saturday, May 15, but the Chinese authorities did not confirm the date, and the Chinese Government still defines no date.
This Friday, 1.1 million doses were delivered, the last batch of vaccines produced by Butantan while waiting for the arrival of the inputs to be able to start the production of the antidote again.
“We have no more inputs, we have no more IFA for the production of vaccines”, assured the governor of São Paulo, who called on the Foreign Ministry to resolve the “diplomatic issues with China”, object of some criticism by the president, Jair Bolsonaro.
However, the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, ruled out today that there is any “diplomatic problem” with China that could hinder the supply of inputs for the local production of the vaccine.
In total, Butantan has delivered 47.2 million vaccines for immunization against covid-19 in Brazil, which corresponds to 60% of the almost 83 million immunizers used in the Vaccination Plan to date, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
Of the remaining 40%, most of the antidotes correspond to those produced by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Rio de Janeiro, the largest scientific health research center in Latin America, attached to the Ministry of Health manufactures in the country the vaccine developed by AstraZéneca/Oxford University.
A smaller percentage includes the antidotes provided by the World Health Organization, through the “Covax facility” agreement, and the 1.1 million doses from Pfizer, corresponding to the first batch of the 100 million vaccines acquired by Brazil.
ARE OTHER VACCINES PRODUCED IN BRAZIL ALSO AT RISK?
Fiocruz, which also produces the vaccines of AstraZéneca/Oxford University with raw material from China, confirmed the day before the arrival of a new batch of inputs from the Asian country on May 22 and another shipment on May 29, thus ensuring antidotes until the third week of that month.
Up to April 30, Fiocruz had delivered 23.4 million doses produced in the country and another 4 million vaccines imported from India. So far in May, it has completed 34.3 million doses, with the delivery, this Friday, of 4.1 million antidotes.
Although so far Fiocruz has been working with inputs from China for the production of the vaccine, it plans to start this Saturday the total production of the antidote, processing the raw material in the country, so that the first doses manufactured entirely in Brazil would be delivered in October.
VACCINATION PLUMMETS 57% IN TWO WEEKS
With more than 430,000 deaths and 15.5 million infections, Brazil is one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic. The South American giant is the nation with the second-highest number of deaths, after the United States, and the third-highest number of confirmed cases by covid, after the USA and India.
So far, 23.5% of Brazilians have received at least the first dose, and only 11.6% have already received the booster.
The vaccination rate against covid-19 in Brazil dropped by 57% in just two weeks, which led the South American country to drop from fourth to sixth place among the nations that vaccinate the most in the world daily.
According to data from “Our World in Data”, a project linked to Oxford University, the daily vaccination average in the country went from 995,000 doses applied on April 29 to 429,000 on May 12.
To face the situation, Brazil continues to negotiate immunizers abroad. The Ministry of Health has already confirmed the purchase of 100 million doses from Pfizer, and the first million arrived at the end of April.
However, Brazil could count on the American immunizer since last December. Still, the Bolsonaro government ignored the proposal made by the pharmaceutical company in August to deliver 1.5 million vaccines last December, as confirmed the day before by the Bolivian Carlos Murillo, Pfizer’s president for Latin America.