While Brazilians await vaccination, Bolsonaro plays politics

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In an early Christmas gift to some, Chile and Mexico began vaccination Thursday after issuing an emergency license for the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine. But in Brazil, where the Covid-19 death toll is much higher, rescue inoculation could be out of reach for months – the country’s Ministry of Health announced last week that its vaccine in February 2021.

Given Brazil ‘s strong history of vaccinations across the country, she says Brazilians were widely expected to have a regional advantage in the fight against the pandemic.

“Brazil has always been at the forefront of implementing new vaccines. We manage to achieve high vaccine coverage, even though it is a continental country with very different regions, such as São Paulo with high population density and Amazonas, with great distances, (and) indigenous population, ”she said.

“People expected a Brazilian vaccination program to start earlier,” she said. But “other countries in America that have prepared themselves are already starting to be vaccinated, and Brazil has been left behind.

Every day the unregulated virus in Brazil is expensive enough. Nearly 190,000 people there were killed by Covid-19 – the highest reported death toll in the world after the United States. But President Jair Bolsonaro has publicly denounced the speed of vaccination, dismissing “the ban on vaccination. “
“The pandemic is coming to an end, the numbers have shown this, we are dealing with a small increase now,” he said on Saturday, according to CNN Brazil. “But there’s no reason to justify the vaccine because you’re playing with people’s lives.”

With more than 7.4 million people diagnosed with Covid-19 in Brazil and new versions of the virus appearing abroad, there is little reason to think that the pandemic is declining – a claim made by Bolsonaro again this year, even as things continued to go up. in the country. Only the USA and India have reported more coronavirus diseases than Brazil.

The Brazilian President also made headlines last week with a rural effort to cast doubt on the possible side effects of the Pfizer vaccine. “If you become a crocodile, that’s your problem,” he warned. “If you become a Superman, or if you grow a beard like a woman, or if a man ‘s voice grows loud, I have nothing to do with that … or worse, undermine people’ s immune systems.”

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

Domingues believes Brazil’s federal government was caught unprepared for the use of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, after throwing its support behind a vaccine candidate with Oxford University and AstraZeneca, which has partnered with the local foundation Fiocruz. According to a statement released last week by the Ministry of Health, Brazil has agreed to receive more than 100 million doses of that vaccine, which is still in development.

In 2021, the Bolsonaro government will also receive nearly 43 million vaccine doses through the COVAX facility, and has signed a memorandum of understanding to receive 70 million doses from Pfizer, and another 38 million from the Johnson and Johnson Janssen subsidiary. However, most doses of the last two vaccines are not expected to be available late in the year, according to a Health Ministry statement.
First, Domingues says, “The Ministry of Health tried to be cautious and only agreed to get vaccinated with the AstraZeneca laboratory and were not willing to get the new vaccines that need storage. at less than 70 (degrees Celsius). ” The Pfizer vaccine must be stored at very cold temperatures, around minus 75 degrees Celsius – which is about 50 degrees colder than any vaccine used in the United States before the pandemic.

At the same time there are fears of political influence on the process, after a year of bitter conflict between Bolsonaro and state governors over the country ‘s pandemic response.

The President made no secret that he would prefer to give the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine to a vaccine developed by Chinese manufacturer Sinovac Biotech, with support from the state of Sao Paulo and in development to -local with the Brazilian laboratory of the Butantan Institute.

Contrary to promises by Brazilian Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello and other officials that any vaccine approved by health regulators by the federal government will be welcomed, Bolsonaro has vowed on Facebook not to buy the vaccine made there. China, and its political boosters have been working to put xenophobia and fear around it.
No vaccine has been approved by Brazil’s health regulator, ANVISA, which is under pressure from the country’s Supreme Court and transport directors to take action. Domingues says she is confident that the group’s experts and officials will not accept “political obstruction” from any quarter while evaluating the science and safety of each candidate.
Ordinary Brazilians, however, may not be as immune to influence, especially when it comes from the highest levels of government. As in many countries, the anti-vaxxer movement has been growing in Brazil for years. And in addition to raising doubts about some vaccines and removing the severity of the virus itself, Bolsonaro has offered fuel to anti-vaxxers by promising to personally refuse the vaccine because it already has Covid-19 – despite evidence that reversal, although rare, is possible.

ANVISA and the Brazilian Ministry of Health did not respond to requests for comment.

Statement provided by Tatiana Arias, Jennifer Z. Deaton, Natalie Gallon and Stefano Pozzebon.

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