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SAO PAULO: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro overruled his own health minister on Wednesday (October 21), rejecting the announced purchase of 46 million doses of CoronaVac, a possible vaccine against COVID-19 that is being tested in the state of Sao Paulo.
Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello announced the purchase on Tuesday along with Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, an enemy of Bolsonaro whose state government is involved in developing the vaccine. The cost of the acquisition was estimated at 2 billion Brazilian reais (US $ 360 million).
“The Brazilian people will not be anyone’s guinea pig,” Bolsonaro said on his social media channels, adding that the injection by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac has not yet finished its testing phase, which is true for all of them. possible vaccines. “My decision is not to buy a vaccine of this type.”
It is common practice for governments to purchase promising vaccine doses to build up stocks in case their efficacy is proven. That investment is generally nonrefundable if the injection fails.
Brazil has more than 153,000 deaths from COVID-19, second only to the United States. The South American nation also confirmed 5.2 million cases of the disease, the third largest in the world, behind the United States and India.
Bolsonaro and Doria have had an adversarial relationship since the onset of the pandemic, with each taking opposite stances regarding stay-at-home recommendations and activity restrictions. The governor of Brazil’s most populous state listened to advice from public health experts and took such measures, which the president criticized, arguing that the economic consequences could kill more than the disease.
Doria, who supported Bolsonaro in the 2018 elections, has distanced himself from the president and is also widely cited as a likely challenger in the 2022 vote.
Lawmaker Bia Kicis, a close ally of Bolsonaro, posted another message on her social media that she said came directly from the president: “I warn that we will not buy a single dose of vaccine from China, and my administration does not maintain any. dialogue with João Doria on the COVID-19 issue, ”the message said.
In June, the Brazilian government announced an agreement with the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to purchase 100 million doses of its potential coronavirus vaccine.
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