Brazil turns the tide with COVID-19 vaccines
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — Despite a slow start plagued by much controversy that still haunts President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's coronavirus vaccination campaign is now one of the fastest-paced and farthest-reaching in the world.
While boasting a globally renowned vaccination system, the country of 213 million people only started coronavirus inoculations in January, several weeks after the United States, many European countries and others in South America.
The rollout was delayed by political bickering under a president who belittled the pandemic and spread vaccine falsehoods, then hamstrung by logistical difficulties in the vast country.
But the country with the world's second-highest Covid-19 death toll — more than 588,000 fatalities reported to date — has seen its coronavirus vaccination rate pick up and its death rate tumble as imported jabs started arriving and local production began.
In the past three months, the number of Brazilians with at least one jab has almost tripled to cover 67.6 percent of the population — slightly higher than in the United States with 63.4 percent and Argentina with 63.8, according to an AFP count.
The figure for those fully vaccinated is much lower, at 36 percent — but enough to put Brazil in third place among the world's ten most populous countries.
With vaccine supply uncertain at first, Brazil decided to focus on giving a first dose to as large a number of people as possible, and opted for a long interval between the first and second jab.
'Little flu'
Logistical delivery problems have largely been ironed out through trial and error, and supply concerns are a thing of the past with Brazil now producing its own AstraZeneca and Sinovac jabs under license.
"The acceleration was seen from May-June, with the arrival and much more consistent supply of vaccines," Jose David Urbaez of the Society of Infectious Disease told AFP.
As a result, from more than 2,000 daily deaths in June, there are now fewer than 600 per day.
Today, Brazil is the country with the fourth-most doses administered — a total of 214 million — after China, India and the United States.
It is administering the third-most doses daily — some 1.5 million on average per day in the last week, and has started giving shots to teenagers and booster shots to vulnerable people.
One problem the country does not have is vaccine skepticism: More than 90 percent of Brazilians have told pollsters they want the jab.
Brazil's recent success came despite a chaotic pandemic outset under the leadership of Bolsonaro, who at its height minimized the virus as a "little flu," fought lockdowns, questioned face masks and rejected various offers of vaccines while pushing unproven drugs such as hydroxychloroquine.
Last December, the president, who had himself contracted Covid-19, suggested the Pfizer vaccine may turn people into crocodiles, cause women to grow beards or men to become effeminate.
He long sought to discredit China's CoronaVac inoculation, even as the governor of Sao Paulo fought to have it approved.
Too late for Bolsonaro?
If the Bolsonaro government had started to negotiate with vaccine manufacturers in mid-2020, like many other countries, "by May or June (this year) Brazil would have already vaccinated its target population," said Urbaez.
Bolsonaro's handling of the outbreak has contributed to his popularity tumbling to a lowly 22 percent, according to a poll Thursday, with frequent protest marches to call for his resignation.
There are dozens of outstanding impeachment bids against him, and a Senate committee is investigating his government's pandemic response.
Bolsonaro is also the subject of several criminal investigations — one of them concerning allegations that he sat on evidence of corruption in a Covid vaccine deal.
Bolsonaro, who came to power in 2019, has rejected all claims of government corruption, instead denouncing the legislature's inquiry as a political "antic" aimed at forcing him from office.
He will seek reelection in 2022, but worried about his chances, Bolsonaro has launched a series of attacks on the judiciary and the very electoral system itself.
"The acceleration of vaccination will have very positive consequences for Brazil, such as the reduction in the number of deaths and greater reopening of economic activity, but is unlikely to translate into an increase in popularity" for Bolsonaro, said political scientist Mauricio Santoro.
At a health center in Brasilia, retiree Monica de Barros, 57, received her second vaccine.
"Hundreds of thousands of deaths could have been avoided by firmer and less denialist action," she told AFP.
Pharma giants Sanofi and GSK said on July 29, 2020, that they have agreed to supply Britain with up to 60 million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine. The agreement covers a vaccine candidate developed by France's Sanofi in partnership with the UK's GSK and is subject to a "final contract."
This thread collects some of the major developments in the search for a vaccine to ease the new coronavirus pandemic. (Main photo by AFP/Joel Saget)
As negotiations towards a new pandemic treaty pick up pace, observers warn of watered-down efforts to ensure equitable access to the medical products needed to battle future Covid-like threats.
Shaken by the pandemic, the World Health Organization's 194 member states are negotiating an international accord aimed at ensuring countries are better equipped to deal with the next catastrophe, or even prevent it altogether.
The process is still in the early stages, with the aim of reaching an agreement by May 2024.
But critics warn that revisions being made to the preliminary negotiating text are weakening the language -- notably in a key area aimed at preventing the rampant inequity seen in access to vaccines and other medical products during the Covid pandemic.
"I think it is a real step backwards," Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute, told AFP. — AFP
Africa's first mRNA vaccine hub is ceremonially launched on Thursday to acclaim from the UN's global health chief, who hailed it as a historic shift to help poor countries gain access to life-saving jabs.
The facility was set up in the South African city of Cape Town in 2021 on the back of the success of revolutionary anti-Covid vaccines introduced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.
"This precious project... will bring a paradigm shift in addressing the serious problem we faced, the equity problem, during the pandemic, so (that) it's not repeated again," World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tells a media briefing to mark the inauguration. — AFP
China has approved its first locally developed messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine against Covid-19, its manufacturer said Wednesday, months after the relaxation of strict Covid-zero regulations sparked a surge in cases.
The vaccine, developed by CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd, has been approved for "emergency use" by Beijing's health regulator, the company said in a statement.
It showed high efficacy in a trial in which it was used as a booster shot for people who have been given other types of vaccines, the company added, without offering further details. — AFP
COVID-19 vaccine maker Novavax raises doubts about its ability to continue its business, announcing plans to cut spending after struggles in rolling out its coronavirus jab.
Shares of Novavax plummeted 25 percent in extended trading, after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed analyst estimates.
While the firm should have enough money to fund operations, the situation is "subject to significant uncertainty," it says in a statement. — AFP
The protection against Covid-19 from being previously infected lasts at least as long as that offered by vaccination, one of the largest studies conducted on the subject says.
Ten months after getting Covid, people still had an 88% lower risk of reinfection, hospitalisation and death, according to the study published in the Lancet journal.
That makes this natural immunity "at least as durable, if not more so" than two doses of Pfizer or Moderna's vaccines, the study says.
The authors nevertheless emphasized that their findings should not discourage vaccination, which remains the safest way to get immunity. — AFP
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