Brazil health ministry says Fiocruz and Butantan will receive vaccine API within the week

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) will receive two batches of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine’s active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) this Saturday, enough to fill 18 million doses, and the Butantan Institute should receive a next batch of the Coronavac API next week, the Ministry of Health’s executive secretary Rodrigo Cruz said on Monday, May 17.

Both Fiocruz and the Butantan rely on the delivery of the API sent by China to continue manufacturing the two most widely used immunizers in the country against Covid-19.

At Butantan, bottling of the Sinovac vaccine was interrupted last week due to a shortage of raw materials, while Fiocruz announced that it would suspend bottling the AstraZeneca vaccine this week until a new batch is received.

According to the executive secretary, the government received confirmation on Monday that on May 21 China will ship two batches that were originally intended to be sent separately on May 21 and 28 to Brazil, with arrival in Brazil on the following day.

“The good news is that today I received confirmation that these two batches will be shipped on May 21. So, it is a sufficient quantity to produce approximately 18 million doses,” Cruz said at a hearing of the temporary committee to monitor Covid-19 in Congress.

As for Butantan, the secretary said he had spoken earlier with representatives of the São Paulo institute and that a confirmation is possible this Monday of the arrival of the Coronavac’s API sometime around May 25.

“There is an expectation, a signal that it will arrive around May 25, but it is still pending confirmation from China,” he said.

The Butantan Institute, linked to the São Paulo government – whose governor João Doria (PSDB) is an opponent of President Jair Bolsonaro – claims that the API is ready and available in China, depending only on the Chinese government’s approval for shipment.

Butantan and the governor claim that Bolsonaro’s recent attacks on China have directly interfered with the release schedule of new batches of raw materials by the Chinese. On Monday, Doria reiterated that the delay is due to a “political and diplomatic issue,” but showed confidence in a release soon.

“We will probably have good news tomorrow about the release of these raw materials,” said the governor while attending a private investment ceremony in the state, adding that the São Paulo government has been working directly with the Chinese to enable the release.

The two main vaccines in use in the country against Covid are AstraZeneca and Coronavac, accounting for 99% of all doses administered, with Coronavac accounting for 69% and AstraZeneca for 30%. Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine represents the remaining 1%.

Butantan has already supplied the Ministry of Health with 47.2 million Coronavac doses from a total of 100 million under contract, while Fiocruz has delivered 30.1 million from a first contract of 104.5 million.

To date, Brazil has immunized 35.8 million people with the first dose, the equivalent to 17% of the population, and 17 million with the two doses (8% of the population).