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Brazil prides itself on its world-leading immunization experts, medical institutions and vaccine research, but the government of President Jair Bolsonaro has been accused of having a chaotic plan to inoculate Covid-19.
Bolsonaro finally launched a mass immunization campaign on Wednesday that aims to vaccinate 70 percent of the population in 16 months, but the president has been accused of repeatedly sabotaging his own program.
On Thursday it released 20 billion reais ($ 3.9 billion) to buy doses of vaccines in a country that has already lost more than 184,000 people to the coronavirus, the second-highest national total in the world.
Later that day, the government announced that daily deaths had risen above 1,000 for the first time since September.
Analysts say the country took too long to formulate an immunization plan, lacked a precise start date, and does not have a clear vaccine purchasing and distribution strategy.
Bolsonaro, who contracted the virus in July and once described it as “a bit of a cold,” announced that he would not receive an injection himself.
And he scoffed at the possible side effects of the type of vaccine developed by the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the German biotech company BioNTech, which has already been rolled out in the United States and Britain.
“It’s very clear in the Pfizer contract: ‘We are not responsible for any side effects.’ If you turn into a crocodile, it’s your problem, “Bolsonaro said Thursday.
“If you become superhuman, if a woman starts growing a beard or if a man starts talking in an effeminate voice, they will have nothing to do with it,” he said, referring to drug makers.
It appears to be having an effect: According to a Datafolha survey, the number of people prepared to be vaccinated against Covid-19 fell from 89 percent in August to 73 percent in December.
Bolsonaro said the vaccine would not be mandatory, but the Supreme Court contradicted him, adding that no one could be “forced” to take it.
– ‘I lost the train’ –
The government is negotiating the purchase of 350 million doses of coronavirus vaccines by 2021.
The figure includes 210 million from the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is largely manufactured in Brazil by the Fiocruz institute, 70 million from the Pfizer vaccine and another 42 million from the one produced by the international conglomerate Covaz.
However, neither of them, nor the CoronaVac produced by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, which is being tested in Sao Paulo, have applied to the regulatory agency Anvisa for an emergency use authorization, which they will need before they can start vaccinating.
“Bolsonaro has lost a lot of time with his denials, with his political battles with state governors over quarantine measures, with his campaign against the vaccine and being mandatory,” José David Urbaez, of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases, told AFP.
“To start a program like this one must have negotiated with the pharmaceutical companies a long time ago” and organized the purchase of syringes, the cold chain and the necessary human resources, he added.
For Luiz Gustavo de Almeida, a microbiologist at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil “missed the first train” of the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines delivered to the United States.
“They will have to wait for the second train when the government can finally purchase vaccines and that will not be until March, April or May 2021. Those who are not priorities probably will not start receiving them until 2022.” . “
The government says it expects to vaccinate the highest-risk groups in four months, once it is approved for a vaccine.
– ‘Disastrous results’ –
Bolsonaro is also embroiled in a public dispute over vaccines with Sao Paulo state governor Joao Doria, who is expected to challenge him in the 2022 presidential elections.
Doria has been pushing to start vaccinating his state from January 25 with CoronaVac, which has started to be manufactured locally by the Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo.
Bolsonaro, however, has constantly tried to discredit the “Chinese Doria vaccine” despite the fact that his government must buy millions of doses of CoronaVac.
“Traditionally in Brazil, infectious diseases were always managed and coordinated centrally, with great results,” said Urbaez.
“The national plan will only work when everyone, the federal and state governments, agrees … Every step backwards costs us weeks of immunizations.”
