RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Brazil’s health regulator approved on Sunday the urgent use of coronavirus vaccines manufactured by Sinovac and AstraZeneca, allowing the largest country in Latin America to start a vaccination program that has been the subject of political delays and disputes.
Brazil currently has 6 million doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine ready to distribute in the coming days and expects the arrival of 2 million doses of the vaccine made by AstraZeneca and its associated Oxford University.
“This is good news for Brazil, but 6 million doses are still very few. It will not allow the entire population at risk to be fully immunized, nor is it clear how quickly the country will get more vaccines, “said Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist at the Federal University of the Holy Spirit.
On Saturday night, health regulator Anvisa rejected a request to use a Russian vaccine called Sputnik V, filed by Brazilian company União Química. Anvisa said it did not evaluate the application because it did not meet the minimum requirements to start an analysis.
Vaccination in Brazil begins later than neighbors like Argentina and Chile, despite a robust public health system and decades of experience in vaccination campaigns. The process for presenting and approving COVID-19 vaccines was fraught with controversy, as President Jair Bolsonaro’s allies tried to question the effectiveness of the Sinovac shot backed by his political rival, the governor of the state of Sao Paulo, João Doria.
“Rivalry between Brasilia and state governments prevented any cooperative work,” said Mauricio Santoro, a professor of political science at Rio de Janeiro State University. “The governor lost the leadership position, but made Bolsonaro act more quickly to ensure the start of vaccination.”
Vaccination priority will be given to leading coronavirus health professionals. Vaccination by the federal government will begin on Wednesday, Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said Sunday.
The state of Sao Paulo began vaccination on Sunday following Anvisa’s decision. Mônica Calazans, a 54-year-old nurse who works on the coronavirus frontline, was vaccinated in a ceremony led by Doria. Calazans had participated in the CoronaVac clinical trial. As more doses become available, vaccination will be extended to other people, including the indigenous population, people over 60 and people with pre-existing illnesses, according to the vaccination plan presented by the federal government.
The Brazilian government is considering extending the time between the application of the first and second doses of immunizers to quickly reach more people, Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said in Manaus on Monday.
The Amazonian city of Manaus, the first capital of the state whose health system collapsed in 2020 due to the pandemic, is once again in a critical situation, with a lack of oxygen in some hospitals. Doctors in the largest city in the Amazon rainforest have to choose which COVID-19 patients can breathe amid declining oxygen reserves.
Hospitals in Manaus, an isolated city of 2.2 million people, have admitted few new patients with COVID-19, which has caused many to suffer from the disease at home and some to die. Other Brazilian states have offered to receive patients and are decongesting the Manaus health system.
Bolsonaro, who hired COVID-19 and said in the past that he has no plans to get vaccinated, has raised suspicions about the effectiveness of the Chinese vaccine, which will be produced locally by an institute that depends on the Sao Paulo government. Governor Doria has criticized Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.
The Sao Paulo government had generated distrust with a confusing announcement about the results of the CoronaVac vaccine. Doria announced on January 7 that the effectiveness of the immunizer was 78% in mild patients and 100% in severe cases. A week later, at a press conference in which the governor was absent, government officials said the clinical effectiveness of CoronaVac was only 50%.
Some scientists warn that not enough data has been published on the efficacy or safety of the Sinovac vaccine. It has yet to be tested on tens of thousands of people in the kind of rigorous study that is deemed necessary before receiving a license for widespread use.
World health authorities have said any vaccine that is at least 50% effective would be helpful. Indonesia, China and Bolivia have granted conditional authorization for CoronaVac.
Despite the doubts and discredit of some supporters of the Brazilian president towards vaccines, many people in Brazil hope to get it.
“I plan to get vaccinated and so will my family,” said Thiago Salgado, 39, a music teacher.
The government’s forecast is to end 2021 with at least 354 million doses between the contracts for the two vaccines and those to be produced locally. If this figure were applied, it would be enough to completely vaccinate at least 80% of Brazilians.
Raquel Esteves, a 74-year-old retiree who supports Bolsonaro, lives in Rio de Janeiro and said she did not feel like getting vaccinated, highlighting questions about the effectiveness of the Sinovac vaccine.
“I’ve been at home for a year and a half, I can run out of problems for another two or three months,” Esteves said.