Covid CPI: Pfizer warned doses would go to other countries should Brazil not reply

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Messages sent by Pfizer to the Brazilian government, delivered to the Covid CPI (investigative committee), show that the pharmaceutical company alerted that doses reserved for Brazil would be delivered to other countries should there be no response to its proposals.

According to the messages, the last such alert occurred on November 24, 2020, when Pfizer sent an e-mail with the updated agreement terms, recalling that the deadline was December 7. And that after that date, doses reserved for Brazil could be allocated to other countries.

Furthermore, when Pfizer sent the letter to President Jair Bolsonaro, on September 12, 2020, the same document was forwarded to several Ministry of Health secretaries. In the letter, the laboratory demanded a position on the proposals sent throughout the month of August, but that until then had not received a reply.

The documents sent to the CPI also show that Pfizer’s first contact with the Brazilian government occurred on March 17 last year, when it sent an email to President Jair Bolsonaro reporting that the company was seeking medical solutions to fight Covid-19.

In the assessment of members of the Covid CPI, there is evidence that the government began to reply to the laboratory’s proposals only after ex-Secretary of Social Communication Fábio Wajngarten joined the negotiations, in November last year. Until then, the company had also sent messages to the president of the Republic, but received no reply.

In other words, it was only after internal pressure that the proposals began to be addressed more swiftly.

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