India says that delivery of vaccine to Brazil will be delayed

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Serum Institute, responsible for the production in India of the covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, has informed Brazil that it will not be able to meet the delivery deadlines of the immunizers purchased by the Jair Bolsonaro government.

The information was published this Sunday, March 21st, by the Indian Times. According to the daily, the head of the institute, Adar Poonawalla, sent a letter to Fiocruz confirming the suspension of deliveries, without an exact date for resumption.

Brazil, according to Poonawalla, has so far received 4 million of the 20 million vaccines ordered. The figure differs from Fiocruz’s most recent forecast. According to the foundation, the negotiation with AstraZeneca and the Serum Institute included the acquisition of eight million more doses over the next two months.

The delay announced by the Serum Institute also affects other countries, such as Morocco and Saudi Arabia. It was justified by increased domestic demand and difficulties in capacity expansion work.

Earlier this month, in statements to Congress, then Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello had already indicated that there could be delays in March in the shipment coming from India.

Internal Pressure in India

The world”s largest vaccine manufacturer, India, is being criticized domestically for donating or selling more doses than it administers at home. The country is in the midst of another wave of covid-19, and has recorded more than 11.6 million infected.

The information of delayed deliveries to Brazil comes days after the UK announced it would have to delay its vaccination program next month because the Indian institute was slow to deliver planned doses. The Serum Institute has so far supplied half of the doses of the 10 million that the British government has ordered.

A source quoted by the Reuters news agency said that Serum is working to expand its monthly production from 60 to 100 million doses by April or May.

Originally, the institute was supposed to sell vaccines only to middle- and low-income countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, but production problems at other AstraZeneca facilities have forced it to ship to many other countries on AstraZeneca’s behalf.

India has so far donated 8 million doses and sold nearly 52 million to 75 countries, mainly AstraZeneca’s vaccine made by Serum. India has administered more than 44 million doses since it started its immunization campaign in mid-January.

Vaccine generated embarrassment for Bolsonaro

At the beginning of the year, under pressure after the acquisition of Coronavac by the government of São Paulo and without having any dose in hand for the beginning of the national vaccination campaign, Bolsonaro sent a letter to the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, asking for urgency in sending it to Brazil, to try to guarantee the immunization.

The request for urgency to import the doses occurred after the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), a federal government entity, informed that there would be a delay in the arrival in the country of the necessary input for local production of the inoculant from AstraZeneca.

Shortly after, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Brazil had acquired the doses from the Serum Institute and that the Brazilian embassy had made arrangements with the Indian authorities to receive the batches. An airplane even started to travel to get the vaccine in the Asian country. Both Bolsonaro and the then Health Minister, Eduardo Pazuello, promised the arrival of the immunization within two days.

In an embarrassment for Bolsonaro, the flight, however, ended up being postponed after the Indian government declared that it could not yet give a date for the export of doses produced in the country.

“It seems that Brazil burned the start by officially announcing the sending of an aircraft to carry 2 million doses of vaccine,” stated a report in the Indian newspaper Hindustan Times at the time.

The cargo with 2 million doses ended up arriving only in late January. The material comes ready to be applied and is only labeled at Fiocruz. The second batch, with two million doses, arrived in Brazil on February 23.

Importation would supply the delay in domestic production

According to Fiocruz, the Indian vaccine served to reduce the initial impact on the delivery schedule. The foundation plans to deliver about 20 million AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines per month, starting in April. Deliveries will occur on a weekly basis. For March, 3.8 million doses are planned, with 1.08 million delivered this week.

The vaccines refer to the production made by Fiocruz, not counting those purchased by the Serum Institute, in India.

The quantity of Indian doses sent to Brazil was never confirmed, but the Brazilian press reported that the government forecast was that 2 million doses would be transferred monthly, starting in April.

Source: DW