by Lisandra Paraguasu
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Health Minister Marcelo Quiroga said on Tuesday that the federal government could consider a new contract for the acquisition of vaccine doses against the Covid-19 coronavirus if the vaccination agent is confirmed with the National Health Surveillance Agency (Envisa). Receives registration. )
“The contract (with the Butantan Institute) was made on an emergency basis. We hope that Anvisa provides definitive registration. When Anvisa provides definitive registration, the ministry will introduce this or any other vaccine with certain registration to the National Program considers part of the vaccination,” Quiroga told reporters in Brasilia.
The federal government signed two contracts with Butanton, responsible for bottling the Chinese-origin vaccine in Brazil, to acquire a total of 100 million doses of CoronaVac, which have already been distributed. A third agreement was likely for another 30 million doses, but negotiations did not progress. Quiroga has reiterated that it will not buy the vaccine without definitive registration.
The authorization for the emergency use of vaccines was given by Anvisa for a period that lasts until the order of the pandemic situation in the country, which should end by the end of this year. Since then, only vaccines with definite registration with the agency can be used.
Currently, only Pfizer and AstraZeneca have definitively registered vaccines against COVID-19 with Anvisa.
Recently, the president of Butanaton, Dimas Kovas, said that getting the definitive registration of CoronaVac developed by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac is a result and it will be done when the data on the vaccination agent is consolidated. He did not specify any time frame for this to happen. Anvisa gave CoronaVac authorization for emergency use in January this year.
Quiroga also said the government is working on planning a vaccination against Covid-19 in 2022 and forecast 100 million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer, which should arrive by the end of the year, along with immunization agents from Johnson K30 million with & Johnson – which still does not have definitive registration but has already requested Anvisa – and AstraZeneca’s with national production of the vaccine, which is being made by the Osvaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). Coronavac was not included in this list.
“In fact, all the countries in the world are not yet sure which is the best strategy, but we have some avenues which we are discussing with the technical group,” the minister said.
According to experts, apart from including children in the immunization list, a booster dose is needed for all those who need to be vaccinated. For example, Pfizer has already asked for authorization to apply for children ages 5 to 11 in the United States.
China has already authorized the application of CoronaVac in children and adolescents and Butantan, affiliated with the government of the state of So Paulo, had requested Anvisa in this regard, but this was denied by the regulatory body, which said that the data was presented. were insufficient to accept the request.
