Brazil to receive first batch of vaccines from Covax Facility

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil will receive this Sunday (21st) the first batch of vaccines against covid-19 from the Covax Facility consortium. There will be 1,022,400 doses that will arrive in the country at 6pm. The shipment will be of the AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured in South Korea.

The arrival of the vaccines was confirmed by the representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) in Brazil, Socorro Galiano.

Galiano sent a letter to Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello today (19). “We are pleased to inform that the first shipment, referring to 1,022,400 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, acquired through the COVAX mechanism, will arrive in Brazil on March 21, 2021,” she said in the letter.

The PAHO/WHO representative in Brazil said that 90% of the doses will expire on May 31, 2021, and the remaining 10% on April 30, 2021. The Covax Facility is an international alliance of the World Health Organization that has as its main objective to accelerate the development and manufacturing of vaccines against covid-19. It is an international consortium with the goal of ensuring equal access to immunization.

The Covax Facility is a collaborative platform, subsidized by member countries, which also aims to enable the negotiation of prices of immunizers. According to the consortium’s press release, 330 million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines are expected to be shipped in the first half of 2021 to 145 countries that are members of the alliance, which brings together more than 150 nations.

Source: Agencia Brasil