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Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said today that the federal government intends to immunize the entire Brazilian population against the new coronavirus next year. Until now, the dose forecasts negotiated by the government indicated sufficient quantities to vaccinate just over half of Brazilians.
“2021”, said the minister when asked about the deadline set by the federal administration for the entire population to be immunized, during an interview with Jovem Pan.
“We believe that we will arrive in mid-2021, the beginning of the second half, with sufficient coverage already,” he added.
However, according to Pazuello, it is not necessary to wait to vaccinate everyone to have the effects of a vaccination strategy. “You don’t have to wait for us to vaccinate 215 million people for have the effects vaccination strategy. Ythe it aims to immunize groups of people who will bring contamination to very reasonable levels ”, he argued.
Currently, the federal government has agreements with the AstraZeneca laboratory to receive 260 million doses and supplies for the manufacture in 2021 of the vaccine produced in partnership with the University of Oxford. There would be 100 million in the first half and another 160 million in the second half.
In addition, there will be 42 million doses of some vaccine that will come from the Covax Facility consortium, manufactured worldwide. So the SUS (Unified Health System) has guaranteed 300 million doses by 2021, according to the Ministry of Health. Each individual will need to take two doses, so there are guaranteed vaccines for 150 million people.
When does the vaccination start?
Asked about dates to start the process, he said that everything depends on the registry of Anvisa (Sanitary Surveillance Agency) and spoke only of “possibilities.”
Yesterday, in an interview with CNN, the minister said that emergency vaccination could begin in December in the country, with doses of the Pfizer / Biontech vaccine, but he listed a series of conditions for that to happen, all of them, at this time. , quite unlikely. .
Pazuello explained today that there are two possible paths for the approval of vaccines, one of which is to take advantage of the registration of four important international regulatory agencies (United States, European Union, Japan and China).
“By law, Anvisa will receive this process from this great agency and will almost approve the registry in Brazil. And, by law, it will speak within 72 hours if it has already found signs that it will be able to regulate or that it will have to dig a little deeper. It is quite accelerated, ”he explained.
The other way, he said, is for the vaccine producer to register in Brazil and present the documentation to Anvisa, which would take longer. “Entering Brazil will meet another term that is not 72 hours. The term that may be a little longer, 30, 40 days.”
Vaccination possibilities in December
Asked about the possibilities of starting vaccination in December with doses of Pfizer, he recalled that there is no registered vaccine in the world; In the case of the United Kingdom, the pharmaceutical company obtained an emergency authorization.
Pazuello said that this possibility could exist if the company requests an emergency use, highlighting, however, that this modality is for very restricted groups.
“We keep talking about hypotheses, we are saying that it is likely that we will have the effective registration of the FDA (US federal agency) of Pfizer now in December in the United States, this will speed up the registration process in Brazil. receive 70 million doses of Pfizer and yes, we will try to postpone it from January until as soon as possible. “
Despite the hypotheses raised by Pazuello, Brazil has not yet closed a contract with Pfizer and the pharmaceutical company has already stated that it will not be able to make doses of its immunizer available to the country before January.
Yesterday, on CNN Brazil, the minister said that the national immunization plan could start between the end of January and the beginning of February, which would be a third different suggested date in two weeks.
The day before yesterday, the minister said that a national vaccination campaign was scheduled to begin at the end of February, with doses of the immunizer developed by the University of Oxford and the AstraZeneca laboratory. Last week, the plan was expected to start in March, although the government has not yet formalized a date.
CoronaVac
In the interview, Pazuello also said that he will buy CoronaVac, a vaccine against covid-19 produced by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac in alliance with the Butantan Institute, if it is registered with Anvisa.
Asked about the issue, Pazuello said that “there is a lot of smoke in this discussion”, in possible reference to the political confrontation involving the immunizer and led by the governor of São Paulo, João Doria (PSDB), and by President Jair Bolsonaro party), who are political enemies.
“In very clear Portuguese, yes, we will buy the vaccines, if they are registered and tested with the price within the correct logic,” he said.
* With information from Reuters
