BRAZIL (Reuters) – The Brazilian government has signed an agreement with Sao Paulo’s Butantan Institute to buy the full production of a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine it produces, the institute said after providing strong data on announced efficiency tests.
Earlier in the day, Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said the government was entering into an agreement for up to 100 million doses of the vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech, China, called CoronaVac, for use in the national vaccination program.
The program, which uses the CoronaVac doses and 100 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to be completed at the Fiocruz Federal Biomedical Center, begins on January 20th.
Butantan later said he had signed the agreement with the government for an initial dose of 46 million, with another dose of 54 million later.
Brazil faces a second wave of the world’s second deadliest coronavirus outbreak to the United States. The country’s death toll passed 200,000 on Thursday.
Right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro has been criticized for disregarding the severity of the pandemic and undermining confidence in vaccines.
Bolsonaro said he would refuse any COVID-19 vaccine, and especially Sinovac’s shot. He said last year that the federal government would not buy a Chinese vaccine.
Butantan announced earlier Thursday that results in the late stage in Brazil showed that the Chinese vaccine has an efficacy rate of 78% and severe COVID-19 cases are completely avoided, as the center wants permission for emergency use.
At a news conference, Pazuello said that issues of liability, production and sovereignty were preventing Brazil from reaching an agreement to buy doses of a COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer.
“We cannot conclude a Pfizer agreement with the current contractual obligations,” he said. He added that the timeline and the number of doses offered did not work for Brazil.
Pazuello praised the vaccine developed by Janssen, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, but said the company could only offer three million doses in the second half of this year.
Brazil is also in talks with a local company planning to make the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, he said.
(Report by Gabriel Stargardter and Anthony Boadle Edited by Brad Haynes, Sam Holmes and Lincoln Feast.)