Brazil began distributing nearly 2 million doses of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine on Saturday, Brazilian health officials announced.
According to Reuters, The Fiocruz Institute, which is federally funded by Brazil, said the vaccine started spreading after the doses arrived from India on Friday.
While the Brazilian government currently has an agreement with AstraZeneca to produce up to 100 million doses of its vaccine locally, the country has recently experienced delays in China in supplying the active ingredient needed to manufacture the vaccine.
AstraZeneca has agreed to give Brazil 2 million doses ready for use in India so that the government can distribute the vaccine among its citizens, reports Reuters.
The spread comes as Brazil has so far relied on the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, which health officials said in Brazil last week just over 50 percent effective to prevent COVID-19, an efficiency rate that is much lower than the 78 percent officials in São Paulo previously estimated.
Sao Paulo Butantan Institute claims Chinese vaccination remains 100 percent effective in preventing “severe” or “moderate” coronavirus infections, while mild or very mild infections may remain after receiving the shot.
Brazil had the second highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the world, with more than 216,000 as of Saturday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The South American country is also in third place for total infections, with more than 8.8 million.
The UK earlier this month become the first country to start administering the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed through a partnership with the University of Oxford. India and Pakistan have meanwhile also approved the vaccine for use.
Trial data showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine has an efficacy rate of 62 percent when given in two full doses 28 days apart, as for most participants. However, the vaccine was found to be 90 percent effective when a small group was mistakenly given half a dose in the experiment, initially followed by a full dose.
Given the questions surrounding the trial data, U.S. health experts initially predicted it would take months to approve AstraZeneca’s state of emergency. Anthony Fauci
Anthony Fauci The spread of vaccine against AstraZeneca begins in Biden in Brazil and the British Prime Minister discusses NATO, multilateralism during the call Sunday shows preview: All eyes on Biden’s government to tackle coronavirus MORE, the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases, said last week that the approval of the shot, as well as one from Johnson & Johnson, was probably “weeks away.”