Covid -19: Brazil plans to discontinue use of Sinovac vaccine in 2022

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian Ministry of Health on Thursday announced that it plans to discontinue the use of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinese laboratory Sinovac vaccine as of 2022, due to its “low effectiveness” in the population over 80 years of age.

In a document submitted to the Senate committee investigating the Brazilian government’s management of the coronavirus, the Ministry pointed out that, in addition, the Coronavac vaccine is only temporarily approved by the health authorities.

“The reason for the potential discontinuation of the Coronavac vaccine in 2022 is directly linked to the condition of evaluation by ANVISA,” the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency, the Ministry said.

It added that the temporary authorization for emergency use was granted “to minimize, as quickly as possible, the impacts of the disease in the national territory.”

The document was forwarded to the parliamentary committee after it had granted a 48-hour deadline for the Ministry to explain the potential discontinuation of the immunizer’s use in the country’s vaccination campaign, which has accumulated almost 600,000 deaths and 21.5 million Covid-19 cases.

Thus, the Ministry also argued that the data collected so far “have demonstrated the immunizer’s low effectiveness in the population over 80 years of age.”

The Ministry also reported that it foresees the delivery of another 207.8 million vaccines by December, 100 million of which would correspond to Pfizer, 36.1 million to Janssen and 71.6 million to AstraZeneca.

“When considering that by the end of the 2021 we have a projected need for 73,707,379 doses” and the contracts signed by the government “have a pending amount of 207,870,340 doses, 134,192,961 doses are expected to be left over for 2022,” it added.

Chinese laboratory Sinovac’s Coronavac, which is produced in Brazil by the São Paulo Butantan Institute, was the first vaccine to be used in the country and currently accounts for 31.9% of the total number of doses applied so far, according to official data.

The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is also being used in the country, accounting for 42.7% of the total, as well as the US-German consortium Pfizer/BioNTech (23.4%) and Belgian Janssen, of the multinational Johnson & Johnson (2.0%), a single-dose vaccine.

As of Thursday, some 70% of Brazil’s 213 million inhabitants had been administered the first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine, while 45.2% have been fully vaccinated.

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