RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said today, May 26, that next week the federal government will sign a Technological Purchase Order contract with AstraZeneca.
The agreement will enable the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API), the raw material needed to produce the vaccine against Covid-19, to be manufactured by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Brazil.
According to the Minister, the contract should be signed on June 1 in a ceremony to be attended by President Jair Bolsonaro. According to Queiroga, the initiative will enable an increase in the vaccination rate in the country.
“With the coordination undertaken by the Ministry of Health, it will be possible, with everyone’s efforts, to vaccinate the Brazilian population over 18 years old by the end of 2021. This is our hope, this is our commitment,” said the Minister during a joint hearing of the Chamber of Deputies Financial Oversight and Control and Consumer Protection Committees.
To deputies, the Minister pointed out that the country has contracted approximately 600 million vaccine doses until 2022. So far, just over 90 million doses have been distributed to states and municipalities, 30 million of which in May.
Queiroga was also asked about the amount of vaccines for the month of June. According to the Ministry of Health’s advisory, 41.9 million doses should be delivered, 12 million fewer than the initial projection.
There will be 20.9 million doses from AstraZeneca, 12 million from Pfizer, 4 million AstraZeneca vaccines sourced through the Covax Facility consortium and 5 million CoronaVac doses.
According to Queiroga, the reduction in the projection occurred due to a shortage of raw materials.
“We are still trying to anticipate 2 batches of AstraZeneca’s API, scheduled for June 20. If we succeed, I believe we will return to the initially planned number of doses for June,” he said.
National testing program
Queiroga further said that the Ministry will begin to implement a strategy to increase the number of tests applied to the population. According to him, on May 27, the Ministry will launch a national mass testing program with the goal of testing 20 million Brazilians monthly.
The measure intends, among other things, to track a potential community transmission of the Indian variant of the novel coronavirus. The presence of the new strain, the B.1.617.2, was confirmed in the country on Thursday, May 20, when 6 cases were detected among 24 crew members of the MV Shandong Da Zhi ship, which came from China and is in isolation in Maranhão.
According to Queiroga, the tests should be applied to symptomatic people in Basic Health Units (BHU) and also those with initial symptoms, in pre-defined places, such as ports, airports and bus stations.
“We are going to launch a big testing campaign tomorrow because today it is possible, thanks to technological advances, to have rapid antigen tests that, in 15 minutes, provide a positive or negative result. Whoever tests positive goes straight to isolation,” he said.
Exoneration
The Minister also commented on the dismissal of the Ministry’s superintendent in Rio de Janeiro, military reserve officer George Divério. The measure was taken after accusations of embezzlement in health contracts in the state. The decision was published in today’s Federal Gazette.
“Naturally, it is not up to the Minister of Health to judge the guilt or otherwise of a public official at this moment, but, in light of what was reported, the Minister of Health made the decision he had to make: to dismiss the public servant with no prejudice to his right to defend himself or contest,” he said.