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In Brasilia, the Ministry of Health reinforced that any vaccine will only be incorporated into the National Immunization Plan after being approved by Anvisa.
The Ministry of Health repeats that it does not rule out any vaccine under study, but so far it has only closed an agreement to buy two of them: that of AstraZeneca, which is being developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with Fiocruz, and the one that will be delivered to through Covax, the global consortium led by WHO. The two are expected to deliver 140 million doses.
This Thursday (3), the Senate approved the provisional measure that guarantees R $ 2 billion for the purchase and production of the Oxford vaccine.
And there is no purchase agreement signed by the federal government with any of the other three pharmaceutical companies that are testing vaccines in Brazil: Pfizer, Janssen and Sinovac.
Pfizer has already reported that it has made a sale proposal to the Brazilian government that expires in the next few days and that it has already signed sales agreements for Latin American countries such as Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico and Costa Rica and that “these countries will be able to operationalize the vaccination , without restrictions, at the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021 ”.
On Thursday, the Secretary of Health Surveillance, Arnaldo Medeiros, was asked on occasions if Brazil intends to buy other vaccines or not, but he did not answer clearly:
“This ministry, yes, is interested in a vaccine that is registered by Anvisa, that this vaccine shows to be effective and safe and that it goes through all the processes so that it can be effectively incorporated into the National Immunization Program.
Epidemiologist Carla Domingues, who coordinated the National Immunization Program until 2019, said that to protect the entire population, quickly, it is necessary to have multiple providers.
“It is necessary to have a greater quantity of vaccine. All countries are doing it. No one can put all their eggs in one basket. We have to think that, to face a pandemic, if we want to be successful, have a successful campaign, you need more than one supplier. ”