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Faced with a still slow vaccination in the country, the Brazilian government today found itself in a new dead end, this time involving the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. The company informed the senators that it does not accept the federal requirements for the sale of its vaccine in the country.
The announcement was made during a meeting with the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (DEM-MG) and Senator Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede-AP). Pfizer complains about the terms of the marketing contracts and requests payment guarantees, in addition to safeguarding itself from the serious effects that vaccines can cause.
The Bolsonaro administration considers the clauses unacceptable and demands changes. However, Pfizer has already said that it will not waive its terms.
The company justified the senators that the clauses are not exclusive to them, but common to pharmaceutical companies and follow an international standard. The purpose of the meeting with Pacheco and Randolfe was to seek an alternative to the impasse.
In a note released today, Pfizer said that it cannot comment on the negotiations with the Brazilian government, but that “the clauses that are being negotiated are in line with the agreements that we closed in other countries of the world, including in Latin America.
Both senators seek to find a middle ground for the Ministry of Health to accept the demands of Pfizer and also Janssen for the purchase of vaccines.
Among the proposals is the creation of a mechanism with a similar operation to Procon. With this, an arbitration forum would be created to analyze cases of adverse reactions to vaccines, for example.
An alternative studied by the senators is to approve MP (Provisional Measure) 1026/2021 as soon as possible. The text facilitates the bidding process to speed up the purchase of products and allows the purchase of supplies and vaccines in the development stage without authorization for use by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency).
But he points out that the application of doses can only occur if the agency authorizes emergency use (risk groups) or registration (definitive authorization for large-scale marketing).
The MP was published in January and is being processed by Congress. A change articulated by Randolfe is that the text begins to provide that the Federal Government can assume risks related to civil liability for possible adverse effects derived from vaccines, provided that Anvisa has granted registration or authorized their emergency and temporary use.
The president of the Senate suggested today to the Minister of Health, General Eduardo Pazuello, changes in the legislation to try to unblock the purchase of vaccines. His proposal foresees sharing the risks of buying vaccines between the Union, the states and the municipalities.
In addition, Pacheco said that the private sector will be allowed to buy vaccines against covid-19 through the project that the National Congress will prepare.
National vaccine production
Today the Vice President of Production and Innovation in Health of Fiocruz (Fundação Oswaldo Cruz), Marco Aurélio Krieger, warned during the UOL interview that more important than the purchase of vaccines is the need for complete production in Brazil.
If we want to buy more vaccines today, we won’t be able to. The figures offered in various agreements are much less than the capacity that Fiocruz and Butantan will make available. It is time to think about the strategic production of some inputs because we saw global competition at all times during the pandemic.
Marco Aurélio Krieger, Vice President of Production and Innovation in Health at Fiocruz
Fiocruz plans to produce a 100% national vaccine in the first half. According to Krieger, the foundation begins the second stage of the vaccine’s technological process in April: nationalization.
2 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, produced in Brazil by Fiocruz, are expected to arrive in Brazil tomorrow. The shipment will be sent by the Serum Institute of India. Until the end of the week, the Foundation still receives two batches of IFA to produce 12 million doses of the vaccine against covid-19.
IFA is the active pharmaceutical ingredient and enables the production of the covid-19 vaccine.
* Guilherme Mazieiro and Luciana Amaral, from UOL, in Brasilia collaborated.
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