03/15/2021 18:14
Clarín.com
World
Updated 03/15/2021 6:24 PM
In the midst of health chaos, the government of Jair Bolsonaro announced on Monday the purchase of
100 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
, which must be delivered until September, in the plan to accelerate immunization against the coronavirus that has already stopped almost 280,000 dead in the country.
The Minister of Health, Eduardo Pazuello, also advanced the acquisition for the second half of the year of
38 million doses of the Janssen vaccine
, a single dose, from the US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson.
With the purchase announced on Monday,
Brazil has ordered some 562 million doses of vaccines
that must be delivered by the end of the year, the minister said, a number that contrasts with the slow start of the campaign since mid-January, with interruptions in some states due to late deliveries.
So far,
9.8 million of the 212 million Brazilians received the first dose
of some of the two vaccines that arrived in the country, the Chinese CoronaVac and the Swedish-British AstraZeneca, and 3.6 million received the second dose.
The Brazilian Minister of Health, General Eduardo Pazuello, announced the purchase of vaccines.
Photo EFE / Joédson Alves.
Pazuello participated in the press conference after a weekend plagued by rumors about his imminent departure from the ministry, as a fuse for the chaotic management of the pandemic by the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
The minister, the third in office since the health crisis began a year ago, admitted that the far-right president was looking for a replacement, to "reorganize" that portfolio.
"The president is trying to reorganize the ministry. As long as that is not defined, life goes on normally (...) we are working focused on our mission," declared Pazuello, a 58-year-old general in the Army.
The second wave of the pandemic is in full swing in Brazil
with more than 1,800 deaths per day on a weekly average.
At the beginning of the year the average was 703 deaths per day.
Source AFP
AFG
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