RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Saturday, a plane from China arrived at São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport with 6,000 liters of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), enough to produce 10 million doses of Coronavac vaccine against Covid-19.
The raw material was sent by the biopharmaceutical company Sinovac, an international partner of the Butantan Institute, in developing the vaccine against the new coronavirus. The forecast is that the doses manufactured with this amount of inputs will be distributed to the population in July.
The production in São Paulo involves bottling, labeling, packaging, and a rigorous quality control process before the doses are delivered to the National Immunization Program (PNI) of the Ministry of Health. The delivery time for the finished vaccines is around 15 to 20 days.
According to the São Paulo state government, it had previously received 3,000 liters of API in May, another 3,000 liters in April, as well as 8,200 liters in March and 11,000 liters in February.
By the end of 2020, Butantan had already received API for the production of 3.8 million vaccines.
According to the information, 52.21 million vaccines against Covid-19 have already been delivered to the PNI by Butantan as part of two contracts signed with the Ministry of Health. The total doses of the two agreements are 100 million doses, expected to be completed by September 30.
“Starting in December, Butantan should start producing the raw material for the Covid-19 vaccine in a new plant in São Paulo. The construction of the unit should be completed in September, with capacity for local manufacture of 100 million doses of the immunizer per year,” said the state government.