RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The São Paulo State Government announced in the early afternoon of Wednesday, June 30, that 53% of the state’s adult population had received at least one dose of one of the vaccines against Covid-19 available in the country.
The Vacinometer, an online tool created by the current leadership to monitor the progress of coronavirus vaccination, showed that just over 25 million doses had been administered in the São Paulo area as of 11:30 AM.
Currently, the vaccines from Coronavac, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Janssen are approved by ANVISA (National Health Regulatory Agency) for use against Covid-19 in Brazil.
Of the total number of vaccinations already administered, 18.7 million were for the first dose, 6.1 million for the second dose, and 165,000 for the Janssen vaccine, which requires only one dose to protect against the coronavirus.
Thus, 18% of the inhabitants of the state of São Paulo are already fully vaccinated.
Governor Doria is in the process of accelerating the production of Coronavac, a vaccine developed by the pharmaceutical company Sinovac in collaboration with the Butantan Institute.
Vaccination centers, such as UBS’s (Unidades Básicas de Saúde – Basic Health Units), are experiencing shortages, especially for those who need the second dose.
A report in the Agora newspaper, published by Grupo Folha, studied ten UBSs in different regions of the capital São Paulo, and only two of them had the vaccine to complete the vaccination cycle. The problem is a risk to public health because it delays the interval between the first and second doses.
At a press conference at the Bandeirantes Palace, Doria said that negotiations with Sinovac representatives have worked and have accelerated the shipment of finished doses and components to Brazil.
Last week, Doria met with Weining Meng, vice president of Sinovac, and asked for more vaccine shipments. As a result, on Tuesday night, a shipment of one million ampoules of Coronavac monodoses was landed at Cumbica Airport in Guarulhos (Greater São Paulo).
The batch was forwarded to the National Immunization Program, Ministry of Health, and will also benefit the population of São Paulo. In addition to this batch, the Butantan Institute has been working since last Saturday on the processing of 6,000 liters of API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) sent by Sinovac, which will be enough to produce at least 10 million finished doses of Coronavac.
Butantan forecasts that the filling process, labeling, and quality control of the vials with the vaccine will take between 15 and 20 days. Only then will the vaccine be distributed to states.
With the 1 million single-dose vials ready for use and another 10 million vaccines filled in Butantan, a total of just over 63 million doses of Coronavac will be delivered to the Department of Health and Human Services by July.