RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – After a week of steady decline, the pace of vaccination in Brazil is picking up. Between March 1st and 4th, the rolling average of doses administered daily increased 35% in the country. The current logistics enable 277,239 Brazilians to get a dose every day, according to a survey on rolling averages by the Our World in Data portal, linked to Oxford University.
Although the acceleration is a positive figure, the number is 72% below the country’s capacity. For instance, in the 2020 influenza immunization campaign, about 1 million people were vaccinated daily, and experts believe that Brazil would be able to boost this in the case of Covid-19, if vaccines were available.
The slow pace is primarily linked to the shortage of available doses. Of all the doses guaranteed in contracts by the federal government, only 2.91% have been distributed to states. The Ministry of Health has closed agreements to purchase 374 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, of which 254 million doses will come from Fiocruz, 100 million doses from the Butantan Institute, and 20 million doses from the Indian Bharat Biotech.
Last week, the federal government announced that it has progressed its negotiations for the purchase of 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, 38 million doses of Janssen’s and 13 million doses of Moderna’s. Negotiations are also underway to purchase 10 million doses of the Russian Sputink V vaccine.
Over the last 4 days (between Monday, March 1st, and Thursday, March 4th), Brazil has averaged between 205,292 and 277,239 doses administered per day. By way of comparison, in the United States, the rolling average in the same period ranged between 1.82 and 2.04 million doses per day.
Vaccination numbers in the states and in the country updated at 6 PM this Friday, March 5th:
State 1st dose / 2nd dose / total doses / % of state population vaccinated
Acre 23,421 4,785 28,206 2.7
Alagoas 115,325 32,299 147,624 3.5
Amapá 25,656 3,295 28,951 3.0
Amazonas 278,566 71,688 350,254 6.7
Bahia 520,432 154,915 675,347 3.5
Ceará 327,376 110,519 437,895 3.6
Federal District 149,851 55,986 205,837 5.0
Espírito Santo 139,159 34,398 173,557 3.5
Goiás 231,947 55,183 287,130 3.3
Maranhão 170,967 58,303 229.270 2.4
Mato Grosso 94,410 39,461 133,871 2.7
Mato Grosso do Sul 125,568 56,586 182,154 4.5
Minas Gerais 635,176 306,981 942,157 3.0
Pará 162,519 62,811 225,330 1.9
Paraíba 130,184 47,536 177,720 3.2
Paraná 331,934 116,214 448,148 2.9
Pernambuco 347,573 120,038 467,611 3.6
Piauí 89,173 25,303 114,476 2.7
Rio de Janeiro 590,471 149,261 739,732 3.4
Rio Grande do Norte 110,891 39,190 150,081 3.2
Rio Grande do Sul 526,636 124,968 651,604 4.6
Rondônia 49,087 12,345 61,432 2.8
Roraima 23,188 10,504 33,692 3.8
Santa Catarina 204,275 63,859 268,134 2.9
São Paulo 2,348,996 784,962 3,133,958 5.1
Sergipe 61,270 27,275 88,545 2.7
Tocantins 49,870 12,287 62,157 3.2
BRAZIL 7,863,921 2,580,952 10,444,873 3.7
Sources: Ministry of Health, State Secretariats and Coronavirus Brazil