Brazil´s Government to Purchase CoronaVac; Butantan Awaits Ministry Letter of Intent

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Butantan Institute is waiting for a letter in which the Ministry of Health will express its irrevocable and irreversible intention to purchase the CoronaVac vaccine, developed by the institute and the Chinese Sinovac laboratory.

The information is from a source involved in the negotiation. After a phone call between Minister of Health Eduardo Pazuello and governor João Doria , a special advisor to Pazuello, Eduardo Cascavel, visited São Paulo on Monday, December 14th, and met with Dimas Covas, director of the Butantan, and Antonio Imbassahy, Special Secretary and Head of the São Paulo State Representation Office in Brasília.

In this meeting, Cascavel confirmed that the ministry will purchase the CoronaVac, to include it in the National Immunization Program.

President Jair Bolsonaro had been resisting the purchase of the CoronaVac for ideological reasons, given that the vaccine is Chinese.

Last month, Bolsonaro had publicly reprimanded the minister when he announced it would purchase Coronavac. “I have already ordered the cancellation. I’m the President, I don’t relinquish my authority. I’m not relinquishing my authority, because I’d be buying a vaccine that no one is interested in but us,” said Bolsonaro at the time.

One day later, in a live webcast, Pazuello said, alongside the President: “It’s that simple: one orders and the other obeys.”

The Butantan deferred the sending of the results of vaccine trials in Brazil to the National Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA) until December 23rd, to obtain the immunizer’s final registration. The documents were initially expected to be submitted on Tuesday, December 15th, in order to secure authorization for emergency use.