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Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), granted today a court order that allows states and municipalities to distribute vaccines against covid-19 although Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) does not authorize them within a period of up to 72 hours, provided that the immunizers have been approved by foreign health authorities.
The permit is also valid if the national vaccination plan against covid-19, presented yesterday by the federal government, is not complied with or “does not provide timely and sufficient immunological coverage against the disease,” Lewandowski said. In this case, the states and municipalities can distribute and apply the vaccines they have, if they are approved by Anvisa.
The decision responds to a lawsuit filed by the Federal Council of the OAB (Brazilian Bar Association), which asked the STF to declare “full validity and applicability” of Law No. 13.979 / 2020, so that the vaccines approved by the authorities sanitary facilities from the United States, Europe, China and Japan are used in Brazil in case of omission of Anvisa.
The OAB even highlighted a statement given by the agency in November, that “an eventual approval of a vaccine by the Chinese regulatory authority does not imply automatic approval for Brazil.”
“Now, the agency’s statement directly confronts the provisions of the law to combat the coronavirus, which categorically considers the possibility of using vaccines in Brazil already approved by the regulatory agencies of the United States, the European Union, Japan and China,” he argued . .
The state of Maranhão filed a similar lawsuit, also analyzed today by Lewandowski and with a similar decision.
Mandatory vaccination
Before, the majority of the STF voted in favor of the possibility that the Union, the states and the municipalities decide on the mandatory vaccine. The ministers Luís Roberto Barroso, Alexandre de Moraes, Edson Fachin, Rosa Weber, Dias Toffoli and Lewandowski agreed with this understanding.
Only Nunes Marques presented a dissenting vote, arguing that the measure depends on the approval of the Ministry of Health and that it is adopted only as a last resort, after carrying out a voluntary vaccination campaign.
The minister was nominated to the Supreme Court this year by President Jair Bolsonaro (no party), who is against the mandatory vaccine against covid-19 and has already said that he will not take it. Today, Minister Eduardo Pazuello (Health) affirmed that the country will receive 24.7 million doses starting in January.
During the trial, the president of the STF, Minister Luiz Fux, reinforced that the law does not allow the use of physical force to force people to get vaccinated. “No one is going to drag anyone by the hair to get a vaccine,” he said. The votes of four ministers, including Fux, are still missing.
(With Estadão content)
