After a series of delays, Fiocruz will start delivering its first Covid-19 vaccines produced in Brazil. The forecast is that just over 1 million doses will be sent by this weekend — 500 thousand on Wednesday (17) and another 580 thousand by Friday (19).
The national manufacture of the immunizing agent developed by the University of Oxford and by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, from imported raw material, was definitively authorized by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) last Friday (12).
So far, all such doses used in the country have been purchased ready-made from the Serum Institute in India. They correspond to 26% of the 11 million units already applied to the Brazilian population, compared to 74% of Coronavac, produced by the Butantan Institute in São Paulo.
By the end of March, Fiocruz plans to send a total of 3.8 million doses to the Ministry of Health, which will then be distributed to the states. This represents only a fifth of the amount previously calculated by the portfolio (16.9 million) and a quarter of that predicted by the foundation (15 million) in that period.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon