India Claims It Cannot Meet Brazil’s Vaccine Demand at This Time

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo made one last unsuccessful attempt to keep the schedule set by the federal government to bring two million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine from India to Brazil.

In a telephone conversation with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Araújo heard that meeting the Brazilian demand would not be possible at this time.

According to diplomatic sources, Araújo and Jaishankar talked and the Indian Foreign Minister clarified that there is willingness to supply the doses produced by the Serum Institute. However, current logistic issues prevent the Asian country from meeting the Brazilian government’s plan to fly the aircraft back from India with the doses in time to start vaccination against Covid-19 next Wednesday or Thursday, January 20th or 21st.

The main argument is that India will initiate its own vaccination campaign against the disease caused by the novel coronavirus on Saturday, January 16th. The country is relying on the vaccine to immunize its population as its emergency use was approved on the first day of the year.

Accordingly, with India’s inability to immediately meet the Brazilian government’s request, the scheduled take-off of the Azul aircraft in charge of carrying the doses could not be maintained. The aircraft, which had been committed specifically for this mission, has been at Guararapes Airport in Recife since Thursday, after leaving Campinas (SP), and was scheduled to fly to the Indian city of Mumbai at 11 PM (Brasília).

A week ago, President Jair Bolsonaro sent a letter to Indian Premier Narendra Modi, requesting the “urgent” advance supply of the two million doses.

The Indian government intends to meet the Brazilian demand in the coming days, but there is still no clear projection for doing this.

Without the AstraZeneca immunizer, better known as the Oxford vaccine, the Ministry of Health can only rely on the CoronaVac to start the national vaccination plan as soon as possible. The vaccine developed by the Butantan Institute in partnership with the Chinese Sinovac laboratory is the only one with doses available in Brazil.

Both the CoronaVac and the Oxford vaccine, which will be later produced in Brazil by Fiocruz (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation), are still waiting for ANVISA (National Health Regulatory Agency) authorization to be administered. The federal agency promised a decision on the emergency use application of the two immunizers by Sunday, January 17th.

Bolsonaro expects delay

The President himself accepted yesterday that the vaccine shipment schedule will have to be delayed by three days “at most”. Bolsonaro pointed out the start of vaccination in India and argued that the country is also under “political pressure”.

“It was all settled to provide two million doses. But today, at this very moment, vaccination is starting in India,” said Bolsonaro in an interview with TV Bandeirantes, advancing by one day the actual start date of immunization in the Asian country.

“It is a country with one billion inhabitants. So, it was decided to delay things for a day or two until people start to be vaccinated there. Because there is also political pressure on both sides. So in my opinion, in two or three days at most, our plane is going to fly and bring those two million vaccines back here,” said the President.

Bolsonaro also claimed that there are no vaccines against Covid-19 available on the market, and said he could rely on the CoronaVac to start vaccination in Brazil.

“There is no availability in the market. We will try to do things as [Minister of Health Eduardo] Pazuello is handling with the Butantan, we will make our vaccine here”, said the President, recalling that the CoronaVac is currently being bottled and labeled in Brazil.