Brazil’s Fiocruz to Apply for AstraZeneca/Oxford Vaccine Emergency Use by Friday

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Piauí Governor and vaccine coordinator at the Governors Forum Wellington Dias said that the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) will apply for the emergency use of the Oxford vaccine against Covid-19 to the National Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA) by next Friday, January 8th. The immunizer is developed by AstraZeneca in partnership with Oxford University.

As ANVISA’s deadline to assess the emergency use of vaccines is ten days, the authorization for this type of administration by Fiocruz is expected to be granted by January 18th. Among three potential dates for the Ministry of Health to begin national immunization against the novel coronavirus, the most optimistic would be January 20th.

During the meeting of the Consortium of the Northeast with representatives of Fiocruz and AstraZeneca on Wednesday, January 6th, the Governor was given confirmation that the biopharmaceutical company will deliver two million complete doses of the vaccine manufactured in India in January. In addition to these, the Governor reported that the Brazilian laboratory will receive in January the immunizer’s active ingredient to produce it in its plant in Rio de Janeiro.

“As of January, Fiocruz will receive 15 million doses, but there is a whole technical procedure and the vaccine will only start to be produced in Brazil as of April”, pointed out Wellington Dias in a video recorded by his advisory. “We have agreed to have something like 50 million doses for the Ministry of Health, for the National Immunization Plan, by April,” he added.

The governor of Piauí further said to have forwarded to AstraZeneca an appeal from governors for the biopharmaceutical company to increase its transfer of the vaccine’s active ingredient to allow Fiocruz to reach its full production capacity of 30 million doses of the immunizer per month.

“This will allow Brazil to achieve a faster immunization process, with the possibility to serve Brazil and also other countries that need this vaccine,” concluded Dias.