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Brazil is not only at war with the coronavirus, which has so far killed 180,000 people and infected nearly seven million. There is also a conflict over vaccines. Bolsonaro believes that the coronavirus is no more dangerous than a cold and has used his broadcasts on social media to mislead politicians who think vaccination should be mandatory.
“We only have a mandatory rabies vaccine for dogs,” Bolsonaro said in his latest broadcast to millions of supporters.
Wednesday changed his mind and now he intends to launch a national vaccination campaign in February. The first groups to be vaccinated are hospital staff, teachers, people over 75 years of age, police officers, prisoners, and people with health problems.
The indigenous peoples of Brazil are also part of the priority group, which includes a total of 49.7 million Brazilians. According to the Ministry of Health, there is an agreement to purchase more than 100 million doses of the AstraZenecas / Oxford University vaccine that will be manufactured by the Brazilian Fiocruz. Additionally, 42.9 million doses of vaccine will be provided through the Covax Facility, a global vaccine alliance for the equitable distribution of covid-19 vaccines.
Due to Bolsonaro’s doubts, the country was delayed in its request to the American Pfizer, which will only be able to deliver its vaccine to Brazil in June.
None of the vaccines it has still been approved by the Anvisa health authority.
– It is obvious that the government lost the opportunity. It should have done it like all other countries and negotiated immediately when the first reports came in that promising vaccines were on the way, Claúdio Maierovitch, former head of Anvisa, tells the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.
With 212 million inhabitants, Brazil has extensive experience in carrying out vaccination campaigns. The country’s Ministry of Health has successfully vaccinated the population against everything from flu and cervical cancer to yellow fever and tuberculosis. As more than a third of the country consists of tropical rainforest, with villages that are difficult to access, the campaigns are considered some of the most extensive in the world. The knowledge that has been accumulated over the years, Bolsonaro has not used correctly.
Has, according to critics has delayed the approval of its own Brazilian vaccine, developed in collaboration between the Butantan Research Institute of São Paulo and the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac. The driving force behind this initiative is the right-wing politician João Doria, governor of the state of São Paulo. He was previously one of Bolsonaro’s allies, but now he has become his worst enemy.
João Doria bought the Chinese-Brazilian vaccine, known as Coronavac, for the state’s population of 47 million people. The idea is that vaccination will begin as early as January 25 when São Paulo turns 467 years old. 13,000 people have been included in the trials, and after phase 3 studies, the vaccine has been shown to be 98 percent effective when tested in 3,000 people. But this vaccine is not approved yet either.
Governor of São Paulo, João Doria is a possible opponent of Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential elections, and critics say that is why Bolsonaro and his supporters have questioned the vaccine, calling it “the Chinese vaccine.” A rumor has been planted that the vaccine causes cancer and that it can change the human genetic code.
This fake news is considered to be behind the fact that 22 percent of the population does not want to get vaccinated if they get the chance, according to a Datafolha survey. In August, the number of skeptics about vaccines was 9 percent.
Earlier during the pandemic, Bolsonaro invested more than SEK 400 million in the production of millions of tablets of the anti-malarial drug chloroquine, despite the fact that there is no evidence that chloroquine can cure COVID-19 patients.
