Brazil announces third dose of vaccines for second half of September

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday, August 25, that as of September 15, it would start distributing vaccines to be applied in third doses, initially for the population over 70 years of age, as long as more than six months have passed after their immunization cycle was completed.

In addition to the “booster doses”, a third dose will be applied to all persons with suppressed immunities, starting 28 days after their complete immunization cycle.

Further, the measure also contemplates “reducing the interval between the Pfizer and AstraZeneca doses”, which will go from the current 12 weeks between the first and second doses to 8 weeks.

“The immunization should preferably be carried out with the third dose from Pfizer or with a viral vector vaccine from Janssen or AstraZeneca,” the Ministry of Health detailed in a statement, apparently excluding the Coronavac vaccine now manufactured in Brazil by the Butantan Institute in São Paulo.

According to the official note, the decision was taken jointly with the National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass) of the 27 states of the country and the Technical Advisory Chamber of Immunization Covid-19 of the ministerial portfolio.

On Tuesday night, the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, had told journalists that the date foreseen for the third booster dose from the second half of September was because it is expected that by that time, all the adult population in the country will have received at least one vaccine dose.

So far, a total of 179.7 million doses have been administered, with 55.7 million in second or single doses. A total of 26.2% of Brazil’s nearly 212 million inhabitants have therefore completed the immunization cycle.

AstraZeneca accounts for 45.8% of the vaccines administered; Coronavac, from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac and produced in Brazil by the Butatan Institute – affiliated to the Government of the State of São Paulo – represents 34.6%; the American-German Pfizer-BioNTech 17%; and the Belgian Janssen, from Johnson & Johnson 2.6%.