It is always with great fanfare and under the watchful eye of the cameras that the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, presented, Monday, April 12, 1.5 million doses of CoronaVac vaccine, produced by the Butantan Medical Research Institute of Sao Paulo in partnership with the Chinese pharmaceutical laboratory Sinovac. In front of the boxes of the vaccine, baptized “the vaccine of Brazil”, the governor once again displayed the V of victory for the photographers.
The political use of vaccination is at its height in Brazil, as the country experiences a worrying rebound in the epidemic. Joao Doria can boast of leading the only state in the federation to provide vaccines to the rest of the country: out of ten Brazilians vaccinated, eight received this vaccine. “Where are the 400 million doses that the federal government has promised the Brazilians?” Today, only the Butantan Institute provides vaccines in Brazil ”, Joao Doria recalled to President Jair Bolsonaro, who has continued to denigrate vaccination and slow down, even sabotage, vaccine orders.
In early April, the Butantan Institute had already produced 39.7 million doses out of the 100 million ordered by the Ministry of Health. Besides, the federal government has a very dull record: 9.8 million doses of AstraZeneca have been administered, including 5.8 million produced by the Fiocruz medical research foundation, in partnership with the University of Oxford. Fiocruz, which belongs to the Ministry of Health, has acknowledged that the 18 million doses of vaccine in preparation (out of the 27 million planned) will not be ready before the beginning of May. At issue: the delay in delivery by China active ingredients. And even if a recent agreement was signed between the American firm Pfizer and the Ministry of Health for the obtaining of 100 million doses, the delivery should not take place in Brazil until the second half of this year.
Containment measures are recommended
Most Brazilians will therefore be vaccinated with the CoronaVac vaccine, the efficacy of which against the virus has always been lower than messenger RNA vaccines. On January 12, the Butantan Institute presented the conclusions of its phase 3 of the tests carried out on the 9,823 volunteers, all belonging to the medical profession. The CoronaVac vaccine was then presented as effective in 50.38% of cases, whether mild or severe.
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