RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With over 500,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the space of a week, Brazil overtook India in terms of the proportion of citizens who began to be immunized.
On Saturday, January 23rd, Brazil recorded the mark of 0.25% of its population vaccinated with the first dose, while India reached 0.11% coverage of its population, according to World In Data website.
India began its vaccination campaign on Saturday, January 16th, just one day before nurse Monica Calazans became the first Brazilian to be vaccinated with the CoronaVac, in São Paulo.
Despite having started one day after India, Brazil set an immunization pace proportionately faster than India, which last week suspended the export of a batch of Oxford vaccines bought by the Brazilian government until it began to immunize its own citizens.
Over the past seven days, the Brazilian healthcare system has administered an average of four doses per 10,000 inhabitants a day, while the Indian has administered one daily dose per 10,000 inhabitants.
The pace of immunization in Brazil is also proportionally faster than in Argentina (two doses per 10,000 inhabitants) and Chile (three doses per 10,000 inhabitants). Chile and Argentina began their vaccination campaigns on December 25th and 30th, respectively. Chile has already administered the first dose to 0.33% of its population, while Argentina reached a coverage of 0.64%.
In either case, the coverage is far from having a positive impact on the spread of the pandemic. According to the World Health Organization at least 70% of the population needs to be immunized in order for a significant impact on the rates of contamination by the novel coronavirus to be observed.
The Brazilian performance should be credited to the country’s more than 40 years of experience in mass and free vaccination campaigns, through the National Immunization Program (PNI).
India is one of the largest vaccine producers in the world, accounting for 60% of global immunizers production. The India-based Serum Institute, which supplied the two million Oxford vaccine doses to Brazil, is the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world. Additionally, another Indian company, Bharat Biotech, has developed its own vaccine against Covid-19, which has been approved by Indian authorities for emergency use.
Despite the competitive advantage of not depending on other countries to have access to the required doses to immunize its population, India faces a huge challenge to vaccinate a significant portion of its citizens: it is the second-most populous country in the world, with 1.36 billion inhabitants.
The government’s goal is to vaccinate 300 million Indians in eight months, representing 22% of the population. In Brazil, priority groups alone total 77.2 million people, representing 37% of the population – but the country has only 13 million units of the Oxford and Sinovac vaccines, which need to be administered in two doses.
In terms of vaccination capacity, using an automotive metaphor, Brazil is a fast car that needs to stop to refuel several times, while India is a little slower, but with excellent mileage.