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The Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, held two meetings this Tuesday (30) with representatives of the United States in search of help to “expand vaccination in the short term.” He called for an anticipation of 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which would be returned to Americans in the future.
The first meeting was with the US Ambassador to Brazil, Todd Chapman. According to the ministry, Queiroga “explained that his objective is to accelerate the vaccination campaign in Brazil more and more.”
The Health Minister said that the country managed to “triple the number of doses applied per day” and that “we are reaching almost 1 million.”
Queiroga asks the US to anticipate 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine
“We have already managed to triple the number of doses applied per day. From 300 thousand, we are almost reaching one million. But the vaccination capacity in Brazil is enormous. With a greater supply of vaccines, we can respond to the Brazilian population and reduce the pressure on the health system, ”said Marcelo Queiroga.
In fact, according to data from the media consortium updated as of Monday night (29), the average daily dose is around 300 thousand since January 18 – including the first application and booster immunization. The country is not yet close to applying 1 million doses a day. To date, 21,078,067 doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca and CoronaVac vaccines have been administered.
In addition to talking about vaccination against Covid-19 in Brazil, Queiroga, according to the Ministry of Health, also showed interest in an alliance for the purchase of supplies, medicines and oxygen supply.
The US ambassador, in turn, according to the portfolio, “made himself available to assist in future support actions” and cited “the possibility of facilitating contact with the North American industry for the purchase of inputs to expand the supply of oxygen, oxygen transport trucks “. , cylinders and ‘intubation kit’ “.
After the first virtual meeting, Queiroga also spoke with Anthony Fauci, chief physician of the White House and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The expert is one of the leaders of the pandemic combat commission in the United States.
The country has around 30 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine that have already been produced and are in stock. In early March, The New York Times even reported that the US government was discussing the possibility of donating these doses to other countries; the newspaper said US government officials cited Brazil as a possible beneficiary.
Gonzalo Viña, a spokesman for AstraZeneca said that governments of other countries also approached Americans to ask for the donation. The pharmaceutical vaccine in association with the University of Oxford has already been licensed in more than 70 countries.
