Brazil has disclosed 70 million Pfizer vaccines

At August of last year, when Brazil emerged as one of the countries hardest hit by covid, Pfizer Inc. has proposed to the Department of Health to reserve up to 70 million doses of the vaccine he was developing. But did not have reply, he therefore repeated the offer, then a third time.

The president of the company for Latin America, Carlos Murillo, told Congress that the following month the Pfizer’s global director sent the offer in writing to chairman Jair Bolsonaro, with copies to vice chairman, the chief of staff, the ministers of health and economy and the ambassador to the United States.

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Never received a reply

The severity of covid in Brazil, with 16 million cases and 450,000 deaths, has often been attributed to Bolsonaro, who is always lost in the crowd without having been vaccinated and without a mask. However, a congressional investigation clearly shows that their negligence has been accompanied by incompetence in key processes at almost every level of government: negotiations with pharmaceutical companies, relations with other countries and management of supply chains. .

“We could immunize two million people a day,” said Carla Domingues, who led Brazil’s national immunization program. for most of the last decade. “If Brazil had signed agreements last year, we could have been in a privileged position, like the United States or the United Kingdom.”

In exchange, as parts of the world abandon the pandemic, in Brazil 2,000 people still die every day. Although vaccines are administered, vital local production is interrupted every few weeks as the ingredients are depleted. Now that winter is approaching in the southern hemisphere and there is less and less social distancing, health officials fear a third wave.

Hearings in Congress reveal a number of flaws, starting with Pfizer’s efforts. It took another three offers and another six months for Brazil to close a deal. Vaccines did not start arriving until the end of April., and they expect to receive larger lots after July.

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Negotiations with Pfizer were far from the only vaccine misstep: vaccine shipments by air were delayed; Misplaced reinforcements remained in a warehouse as cities halted vaccinations after using whatever was available as first doses; and a high-level Bolsonaro adviser was secretly vaccinated.

The government says it has administered tens of millions of vaccines, which places it among the countries with the most vaccines delivered in the world. But this covers only 10% of its 212 million inhabitants with the two doses, compared to 36% in the United Kingdom, the next country in the ranking.

During the congressional hearings, the testimony of former health minister Eduardo Pazuello only increased the feeling of confusion. He denied neglecting negotiations with Pfizer and said he “always” tries to buy vaccines, but regulations prevent him from doing so.

He also denied that Bolsonaro ordered him to stop buying Chinese CoronaVac vaccines in October, saying he never received a formal order to do so. At the time, Bolsonaro was writing on social media, “The Brazilian people WILL NOT BE ANYONE’S GUINEA RABBIT”, adding that he would not buy the vaccine. Pazuello, an army general, responded a few days later by saying “one commands, the other obeys”.

Dimas Covas, director of the Butantan Institute, which produces the vaccine locally, told a different story. When testifying in Thursday’s hearings, Covas said his initial offer – 60 million doses, filed in July – also received no response. Talks moved forward after meetings in August and a deal was ready to be signed in October, until Bolsonaro stepped in and suspended any deal.

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The CoronaVac vaccine has been a source of political division because of its origins, but as options dwindled, the government was forced to buy it.. By then it was already January. The damage to the proposed schedule was already done and a new, more aggressive variant was emerging in the country.

Butantan and Fiocruz, which partnered with AstraZeneca Plc, faced delays in the supply of active ingredients and ready-to-use doses. The virus has been blamed for the resurgence in India, bureaucracy at home and abroad, and diplomatic nonsense, such as when Bolsonaro suggested weeks ago that the Chinese created the virus as “weapons biological ”. The ministry has repeatedly reduced the forecast for the number of vaccines available and forced Fiocruz and Butantan to stop production.

“The first estimates were made without a lot of technical information,” said Mauricio Zuma, who heads the Fiocruz unit responsible for vaccine research and production. “The reality turned out to be a little different from what we expected.”

“Brazil could have carried out vaccinations all over the world”says Covas of the Butantan Institute. “The government just didn’t understand the importance.”