The Brazilian regulator approved on Sunday January 17 the emergency use of two vaccines against Covid-19, the Briton AstraZeneca and the Chinese CoronaVac, the first two to get the green light in Brazil, where the pandemic has already almost done 210,000 dead.
Read also: In Brazil, Bolsonaro on an anti-vaccine campaign
This authorization announced by the regulator Anvisa made it possible to launch the vaccination campaign in Brazil.
It will initially use CoronaVac, produced by the Chinese company Sinovac in collaboration with the Brazilian institute Butantan, the only vaccine currently available in the country.
It is a 54-year-old nurse from Sao Paulo who was the first person vaccinated against Covid-19 in Brazil on Sunday, AFP noted.
Mônica Calazans, a nurse at Emilio Ribas hospital, received a first injection of the CoronaVac vaccine, during a ceremony in the presence of the governor of the state of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, who is a rival to the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
In the process, more than 100 people were vaccinated this Sunday in the same hospital, said the government of Sao Paulo.
"A marketing coup
,
"
responded the Brazilian government, which indicated that the national vaccination campaign will officially begin on Wednesday.
Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said that any initiative
"outside"
the government's program "is in contradiction with the law" because it
"ignores equality between states and among all Brazilians"
.
He said the six million doses of the CoronaVac vaccine will begin to be distributed Monday among Brazil's 27 states.
Nursing staff, those over 75 and over 60 living in homes for the elderly as well as the indigenous population will be vaccinated as a priority.
Read also: Brazil: Bolsonaro, captain without a compass in the heart of the storm
The second authorized vaccine is the British AstraZeneca / Oxford, produced in Bombay by the Serum laboratory in partnership with the Fiocruz Foundation of the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
The Brazilian government hoped to finalize the import of two million doses of the vaccine from India this weekend, but the Indian government, which began a massive campaign on Saturday, has not yet given the green light.
Brazil is facing a virulent second wave, with tolls reaching more than 1,000 deaths per day.
The Latin American giant is the second most bereaved country in the world, with 209,847 dead, just behind the United States.
The situation is dire in Manaus in the Amazon, which on Friday began transferring patients to other states and faces an oxygen shortage and overloading its hospitals.
Some scientists believe the situation is likely to have deteriorated due to the presence in the region of a variant of the coronavirus which could prove to be more contagious, such as those which have appeared in the United Kingdom or South Africa. .
