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Six covid-19 vaccines are in the final stages of development around the world. Four are being tested in Brazil, with authorization from Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency).
Without complete information released to the public, there are timelines or projections at this time, with no set date for the start of immunization.
Coronavac
The only one who increased the start of vaccination in December, starting with health professionals, Governor João Doria (PSDB) took a step back and adopted a more cautious tone, saying that it is not yet possible to specify when the doses will be available. .
The state government announced last week that it should receive 46 million doses (the Coronavac requires the application of two doses per person) in the last month of the year.
There is also a forecast of another 15 million in February, if necessary.
Astrazeneca and the University of Oxford
The detail of the São Paulo government order was a reaction to the announcement made days before by the Ministry of Health of the vaccine delivery schedule. ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, commissioned by Brasilia with the laboratory Astrazeneca and the University of Oxford – and which will be manufactured by Fiocruz in Bio-Manguinhos, in Rio de Janeiro, from April 2021.
The federal government said it will have 100 million doses in the first half of 2021 and another 110 million in the second half of the year, but without committing to a date for the start of immunization. What was announced last week was simply that Brazil would receive 15 million doses of the “Oxford vaccine” monthly, starting in January.
Regarding the term, the Coronavac wide on the front, but missing specific information. Asked about the report, the Butantan Institute did not specify when the preliminary results of phase 3, which tests the effectiveness of the immunizer, will be announced.
Behind the scenes, the race for a vaccine is seen as a feud between Doria and President Jair Bolsonaro (no party) with his sights set on the 2022 elections.
There is this competition from the ‘Doria vaccine’ and the ‘Bolsonaro vaccine’, of which is for the best, but the truth is that we will need both to handle it. In fact, we will need more vaccines. “
Natalie Pasternak, Microbiologist and President of the Science Question Institute
Sputnik
In the insecure aspect of information, among the immunizers cited for use in Brazil, no one wins Sputnik V, created by Russian research centers. Agreement announced yesterday between the Russian Fund for Direct Investment (RDIF) and pharmaceutical company União Química may allow the company to produce the vaccine in Brazil in December.
The production of the Russian vaccine is also expected Korea South, China and India, a country where batches are also expected to begin completion this year. The executive director of the Russian fund, Kirill Dmitriev, said that Brazil is a reliable partner.
On Monday (19), Dmitriev said that 230 million doses of Sputnik V will start shipping to Latin America from January. The Bahia government said it bought 50 million doses of the immunizer.
Scheduled for early October, phase 3 trials of the Russian vaccine with Brazilian volunteers have yet to leave the newspaper. In note, the Technological Institute of Paraná (Tecpar) states that they are in the final stages of preparing Sputnik’s clinical trial validation protocol V no country.
“Sputnik has a complicated history of data transparency. We’re a bit on the back burner,” says Pasternak.
Janssen-Cilag
In another clinical trial, the immunizer Janssen-Cilag suffered a setback early last week due to the onset of an unexplained illness in a research participant. The pharmaceutical company He opted for transparency and announced a pause in the studies, including in Brazil, until it was known if the episode was related to the vaccine.
Pasternak believes that all the vaccines being tested in Brazil are promising. “They all did well in the early stages, generated an immune response, and had few side effects.” Now, manufacturers are competing to see who will first communicate the preliminary results of phase 3 clinical trials. With the results, the race begins to approve the use of the vaccine with the health authorities of the countries.
Logistical challenge
The dispute over the first dose of the vaccine ends up changing the focus to another problem not very detailed by the Health authorities: how to get the vaccine to the entire Brazilian population.
The logistical challenge includes concerns about refrigeration. Most of the vaccines under study in Brazil require a temperature of 2ºC to 8ºC and can be stored in common refrigerators. The federal government says that all health posts are equipped and are already used to the distribution of drugs in this condition.
But the Pfizer-BioNTech immunizer, which has the latest technology – it uses mRNA, the virus’ messenger RNA – requires temperatures between -20ºC and -70ºC, which are only found in laboratory freezers. “It may be a supervaccine, but we can’t get it in all of Brazil,” says Pasternak.
Another aspect to be defined is that of the priority groups (elderly, people with comorbidities, health professionals, among others) to receive immunizations. The Ministry of Health does not deny that these points have yet to be defined. But he promises to indicate the entire immunization strategy against covid-19 by presenting the National Immunization Plan (PNI), between November and December.
