RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – A first shipment of 88 liters of active ingredients to make AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to Brazil arrived from China on Saturday, an essential contribution to accelerating the country’s troubled vaccination program.
With these supplies shipped to Rio de Janeiro on a cargo plane, the Fiocruz biomedical center can begin filling and finishing 2.8 million doses. The federally funded center expects to receive more ingredients this month to make a total of 15 million vaccine shots developed with Oxford University.
The Fiocruz production line, initially scheduled to begin production in December, has been left idle due to delays in obtaining the first shipment of supplies from China.
The AstraZeneca Plc vaccine is the central pillar of Brazil’s national inoculation program and the federal government has ordered material for Fiocruz to fire up to 100 million shots.
To begin inoculating its 210 million people, Brazil has initially relied on the Chinese vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech Ltd and 2 million AstraZeneca shots ready to use imported from India last month.
Pfizer Inc. on Friday applied for full regulatory approval in Brazil of its COVID-19 vaccine developed with BioNTech Se, the company said.
It is the second vaccine submitted for registration in Brazil. AstraZeneca applied on January 29 for full regulatory approval of its vaccine.
President Jair Bolsonaro, who says he will not take any shots of COVID-19, is under pressure after a slow and erratic deployment of vaccines in Brazil, which is now facing a second wave of infections.
Bolsonaro referred to the virus as “little flu”, but his government is facing growing criticism for its treatment of the world’s second deadliest coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 231,000 Brazilians.
Sao Paulo’s Butantan Biomedical Institute said Saturday it has begun filling and finishing 8.6 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine called Coronavac with ingredients that arrived Wednesday from China.
Butantan said it expects to receive another supply of ingredients on Wednesday to make an additional 8.7 million doses.
Report by Sergio Queiroz, edited by Anthony Boadle; Edited by David Gregorio