Brazil avoided the first batch of vaccines delivered by Kovacs, a global alliance formed to guarantee the delivery of doses to developing countries. This week, the organization announced that supplies to the American continent began in Colombia with a retardant from Pfizer / BioNTech.
In the coming days, the same vaccines will arrive in Peru, El Salvador and Bolivia. Pfizer / BioNTech doses will be delivered to a total of 18 countries in the US. But Brazil is not a part of this block and there is no date for the arrival of products in the country, at least for now. The alliance guarantees that the dose will arrive in March.
accordingly Seth BerkleeExecutive of GAVI (Vaccine Fund), Pfizer assumed legal responsibility for supplements to specific requirements for governments and also set criteria for preparing countries.
One of the arguments used to justify supply to these countries as a priority is the absence of bilateral contracts with pharmaceutical companies, particularly the poorest.
But sources in Brasilia indicated that the country still needed to carry out “bureaucratic procedures” to allow the purchase of supplements. President’s on Monday only Jair Bolsonaro Considered a provisional measure that authorizes Brazil to become part of the Kovacs. The MP passed through the Senate and the Chamber, where it was subject to changes.
For Brazil, Kovacs will ship vaccines from AstraZeneca and the unit guarantees that, “in the coming weeks”, all 36 countries in the region will receive the products.
9.1 million doses by the end of May
However, the volume set for Brazil will be much lower than the government announced in February. At the time, the Ministry of Health indicated that it would receive between 10 million and 14 million doses. But the figures were only preliminary forecasts. On Friday, the Vaccine Alliance confirmed to Pillar that it would allocate only 9.1 million doses in the first half of the year.
2.9 million will still go in March. But the date has not been decided yet. For the second semester, the country will receive the 42 million balance requested by it.
In the case of Columbia, 117,000 doses of Pfizer / Bioentech will be administered this week. By the end of the year, the country expects to receive 20 million doses of Kovacs.
With 50 million confirmed cases and 1.2 million deaths, US countries will need to vaccinate 700 million to control the epidemic.
Largest vaccination campaign in history
In the world, the coalition’s first distribution by May will allow 237 million doses to reach 142 countries. Pakistan (14.6 million doses), Nigeria (13.6 million), Indonesia (11.7 million) and Bangladesh (10.9 million) will receive more than Brazil.
According to WHO Executive Director, Tedros Ghebreyesus, the alliance will distribute a total of 11 million doses this week, including Cambodia, Angola and Nigeria. Even governments of rich countries, like South Korea, received Pfizer supplements.
Berkeley indicated that the plans provide a dose of 2.3 billion by the end of 2021 in the poorest countries. “This is the biggest vaccination campaign in history,” he said.
But the challenges of the alliance continue. German Minister Maria Flaxberth stressed that the facility still requires $ 22 billion for the year and warned that the only way to accelerate vaccination is to prevent the mutation of the virus. “To reach this volume, we need more donors,” he said.
