Nine Brazilian States Suspend Purchase of 37 Million Doses of Sputnik V Vaccine Against COVID-19

The regional governments of the nine northeastern states of Brazil announced on Thursday the temporary suspension of the contract that they had signed with the Gamaleya Institute and the Russian Sovereign Fund for import 37 million doses of Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19.

The suspension was due to the Brazilian health authorities approving the use of Sputnik V in Brazil with various restrictions since the Ministry of Health did not include this vaccine in their national campaign immunization.

The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) authorized the import of Russian Sputnik V vaccines in June, but only “some specific lots“And so”exceptional and temporary”.

The regulator has established a series of “terms“For the use of the Russian vaccine in Brazil and limited its application to 1% of the population in each of the northeastern states.

The suspension of the contract was announced in a press release from Northeast Consortium, the forum which brings together the governors of the nine states of northeastern Brazil, the poorest in the country.

According to the Northeast Consortium, the suspension of the contract came at a time when the delivery of the first batch of one million vaccines was expected before the “the new limitations imposed by Anvisa, the non-inclusion of the vaccine in the National Vaccination Plan and the absence of an import license”.

To date, the only vaccines included in the National Vaccination Plan are those from laboratories AstraZeneca, Sinovac, Pfizer and Janssen, the use of which has been authorized by Anvisa.

“It’s a shame. Brazil is experiencing a high mortality situation, with around a thousand deaths per day, and we have vaccines available, but prevented from entering the country by an Anvisa decision», Declared the governor of the State of Piauí, Wellington Days, president of the Northeast Consortium.

Dias said the contract will be suspended until Anvisa allows the vaccine to be used permanently and unconditionally.

“We had already suspended the delivery of the first vaccines and now we agree to suspend the contract until we have the authorization and release of Sputnik V in Brazil.“He added.

The Russian Sovereign Fund has indicated that doses that would be sent to Brazil will now be distributed to Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia.

Anvisa, in a statement released on Thursday, said that it made the importation of Sputnik conditional on compliance with 22 requirements given the need to “fill gaps in existing information regarding aspects of vaccine quality, safety and efficacy”.

“Anvisa affirms that it has not added any other conditions” and stresses that “it has been guided by absolute transparency in all its decisions in favor of the protection of the health of the population,” the note said.

Brazil, with more than 560,000 deaths and 20 million infections, is the second country with the most pandemic victims Yes the third with the most cases, only overtaken by the United States and India.

Despite these high figures, the weekly average of deaths fell on Thursday to 887 per day, its lowest level in nearly seven months, and that of infections to 32,460 per day, the lowest in eight months.

The decline in cases and deaths coincides with the acceleration of the vaccination process in Brazil, where nearly 50% of the population has already received the first dose of a vaccine and 21% both doses or the single-dose vaccine.

(With information from EFE)

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