While Brazilians wait for a vaccine, Bolsonaro is playing politics

by

As an early Christmas present for some, Chile and Mexico began vaccinations on Thursday after granting emergency approval for the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine. But in Brazil, where the death toll from Covid-19 is much higher, life-saving vaccinations could be out of reach for months – the country’s Ministry of Health announced last week that the vaccinations would begin in February 2021.

Because Brazil has a strong track record of nationwide vaccination, she says the general expectation was that Brazilians would have a regional advantage in the fight against the pandemic.

“Brazil has always been the leader in the implementation of new vaccines. We manage to achieve a high vaccination coverage, even though it is a continental country with very different regions, such as São Paulo with a high population density and Amazonas, with huge distances, (and) an indigenous people, ”she said.

“People expected the Brazilian vaccination program to start sooner,” she said. But “other countries of America that have prepared are already starting the vaccination, and Brazil is lagging behind.”

Every day the virus rages out of control in Brazil is deadly expensive. Nearly 190,000 people died there from Covid-19 – the highest reported death toll in the world after the United States. Yet President Jair Bolsonaro has publicly guessed the urgency of immunization second, by belittling “the rush for a vaccine.”
“The pandemic is really coming to an end, the numbers show this, we are dealing with small increases now,” he said Saturday, according to CNN Brasil. “But the rush for the vaccine is not justified because you are playing with people’s lives.”

With more than 7.4 million people diagnosed with Covid-19 in Brazil and new variants of the virus emerging abroad, there is little reason to believe the pandemic is on the wane – a claim Bolsonaro made this year repeatedly did, even as the number of cases continued to increase. in the country. Only the US and India report more coronavirus infections than Brazil.

The Brazilian president also made headlines last week with a bizarre attempt to cast doubt on possible side effects of the Pfizer vaccine. “If you become an alligator, that’s your problem,” he warned. “If you become Superman, or grow a beard as a woman, or a man’s voice gets high, I have nothing to do with that … or worse, you disrupt people’s immune systems.”

Pfizer did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Domingues believes Brazil’s federal government was caught unprepared to use the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine after lending its support to a vaccine candidate from Oxford University and AstraZeneca, who have partnered with the local Fiocruz foundation. Brazil has agreed to acquire more than 100 million doses of that vaccine, which is still under development, according to a statement published by the Ministry of Health last week.

By 2021, the Bolsonaro government will also receive nearly 43 million doses of vaccine through the COVAX facility, and has signed a memorandum of understanding to acquire 70 million doses from Pfizer and an additional 38 million from Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen. Most doses of the last two vaccines will not become available until late in the year, according to the health ministry statement.
At first, says Domingues, “the Ministry of Health tried to exercise caution and only agreed to obtain the vaccine from the AstraZeneca laboratory and was unwilling to receive the new vaccines to be stored at a temperature lower than 70 (degrees Celsius). ” Pfizer’s vaccine must be stored at ultra-cold temperatures, about minus 75 degrees Celsius – which is about 50 degrees colder than any vaccine used in the United States before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, fears persist over the influence of politics on the process, after a year of bitter clashes between Bolsonaro and state governors over the country’s pandemic response.

The president has made no secret of his preference for the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine over a vaccine developed by Chinese maker Sinovac Biotech, which is supported by the state of Sao Paulo and developed locally with the Brazilian Butantan Institute .

Against the assurances of Brazilian Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello and other officials that any vaccine approved by health regulators will be welcomed by the federal government, Bolsonaro has vowed on Facebook not to buy the China-made vaccine, and his political boosters have worked to stir up xenophobia. and fear around it.
No vaccine has yet been approved by Brazilian health regulator ANVISA, which is under pressure from the Supreme Court and Congressional leaders to take action. Domingues says she is confident that the agency’s experts and officials “will not accept political interference” from any side in evaluating the science and security of each candidate.
Ordinary Brazilians, however, may not be as immune to influence, especially if it comes from the highest levels of government. As in many countries, an anti-vaxxer movement has been growing in Brazil for years. And in addition to voicing doubts about some vaccines and denouncing the severity of the virus itself, Bolsonaro has offered fuel to anti-vaxxers by promising to personally refuse vaccination because he has already had Covid-19 – despite evidence that reinfection , although rare, is possible.

ANVISA and the Brazilian Ministry of Health have not responded to requests for comment.

Reporting contributed by Tatiana Arias, Jennifer Z. Deaton, Natalie Gallon and Stefano Pozzebon.

.Source