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Jair Bolsonaro celebrated Anvisa’s decision on Facebook by responding to an intern who asked if the government would buy and manufacture the vaccine if the evidence – currently in phase 3 – showed that it is effective and safe.
“Death, disability, abnormality… this is the vaccine that Doria wanted to force the people of São Paulo to take. The president said the vaccine could never be mandatory. Another one won by Jair Bolsonaro ”, wrote the Brazilian president.
This statement sparked a barrage of criticism from his political opponents, including former presidential candidate Ciro Gomes, of the center-left PDT, who said that “the prison sentence is too small for these rascals who maneuver. low policies with vaccines “.
The Butantan Institute of São Paulo, the main vaccine manufacturer in Brazil, and the governor of the region, Joao Doria, is Bolsonaro’s main political opponent, have argued that the “serious negative incident” occurred on October 29, which led to the suspension of the studies of the Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) it was a death that has no relation to the vaccine.
The San Paolo Forensic Institute (IML) told AFP that “the above case has been registered and is being investigated as suicide”.
Information not confirmed by Anvisa, whose director, Antonio Barra Torres, defended this Tuesday at a press conference that the suspension decided on Monday evening was for “technical reasons”.
“The information received yesterday was considered insufficient, incomplete, so much so that yesterday it was possible to continue to allow the development of the vaccine,” said Barra Torres, without providing details on what happened.
Barra Torres did not indicate when rehearsals could be resumed.
Dimas Covas, president of the Butantan Institute, said in a conference Tuesday that Anvisa’s decision had caused “surprise” and “outrage” but that he hoped it would be quickly reversed.
“There is no relationship between the cause of death of this or this patient, with the alleged vaccine, because we do not even know whether he took the vaccine or a placebo,” added Joao Gabbardo, coordinator of the coronavirus emergency center of the government of Sao Paulo.
The Chinese laboratory Sinovac Biotech also stated that the incident in question is not “related” to the vaccine and said it was “confident” in its safety.
Pandemic and politics
CoronaVac was at the center of a political battle in Brazil between Bolsonaro and Doria, who have already fought for the quarantine measures advocated by the governors and for the use of chloroquine promoted by the president.
São Paulo has an agreement with Sinovac to acquire 46 million doses, six million produced in China and the rest in São Paulo.
Hours before the suspension of trials was announced, Doria had made it known that the first 120,000 doses of CoronaVac would arrive in Sao Paulo on November 20 and that work has already begun on a factory that will be able to produce up to 100 million. doses per year.
To be provided to the population, vaccines must complete phase 3 clinical studies (to demonstrate their efficacy and safety) and be approved by Anvisa.
The far-right president pointed to the Sinovac model as the vaccine of “that other country” and instead promoted the one developed by the University of Oxford with the British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, also being tested in the country.
Last month, Bolsonaro canceled a deal to purchase doses of the Chinese vaccine, which he called “Joao Doria’s Chinese vaccine,” which had been announced by his own health minister.
The setback for CoronaVac came on the same day that US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced that its coronavirus vaccine is 90% effective.
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