Fiocruz: Covid-19 Immunization in Brazil Should Begin by March 2021

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Fiocruz (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation) projects that the first doses of the Oxford University vaccine against Covid-19 should be administered in Brazil by March 2021. The statement was made on Monday, November 2nd by the Foundation’s president, Nísia Trindade Lima.

According to Lima, production is expected to begin at Fiocruz in January or February: “All work will be monitored by the ANVISA (National Health Regulatory Agency). Thus, we hope that in the first quarter of 2021 we may have an immunization program,” she said after the All Souls’ Day ceremony at the Penitência Cemetery in Rio de Janeiro.

In September, Fiocruz signed a technological order contract with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine developed in Oxford, now President Jair Bolsonaro’s first choice.

AstraZeneca holds the vaccine’s production, distribution, and marketing rights. The federal government opened an extraordinary credit line of R$1.9 billion (US$380 million) to enable the production and purchase of doses of the vaccine by Fiocruz.

A total of 15 million doses of the Oxford vaccine’s API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient), manufactured in China, will be shipped to Brazil in December to begin domestic production of the first doses of the vaccine.

In September, the vaccine’s phase 3 trials had been temporarily interrupted worldwide, after the detection of a serious neurological disease called transverse myelitis in a volunteer in the United Kingdom. Trials were restarted after the disease was found to be unrelated to the vaccine.

In late October, a volunteer from the AstraZeneca trial in Brazil died after complications of Covid-19. However, after analyzing the data, ANVISA found that the patient had been in the so-called control group and had not been administered the vaccine.

The Oxford vaccine, in an advanced stage, is one of the principal candidates for immunization in Brazil. The CoronaVac vaccine, in development by the Chinese Sinovac company, is also in its last trial phase and will be produced by the Butantan Institute in São Paulo.

President Jair Bolsonaro has made remarks opposing what he calls João Doria’s “Chinese vaccine”, as the governor of São Paulo is seen as a potential adversary in the 2022 presidential elections. Bolsonaro has also argued that immunization should not be compulsory.

One day after the Ministry of Health announced an agreement to buy 46 million doses of the Coronavac, Bolsonaro said the government’s purchase of vaccines is ruled out until their efficacy is confirmed.

Faced with the setback and the President’s statements, governors are looking for a solution through the Legislature to ensure that the federal government will be forced to purchase vaccines approved by ANVISA, whichever they may be.

With posters in opposition to São Paulo governor, João Doria, a group of Bolsonarists protested on Sunday, November 1st, in the São Paulo capital against a mandatory coronavirus vaccine, nicknamed by some as ‘vaChina’.

“My body belongs to me”, “Go Trump”, “Out Doria and Vachina” and “Doria, I’m not a guinea pig” were some of the statements printed on posters. The vaccine was referred to by the sound car as the “socialist experiment”. Many demonstrators were not wearing masks – an obligatory protection item during the pandemic.

Source: Folhapress