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Coronavirus: China sceptic Jair Bolsonaro thanks Beijing for fast-tracking Brazil vaccine supplies
Demonstrators hold a protest against Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro in Brasilia on January 17. Photo: AFP
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, a long-time China sceptic, thanked Beijing on Monday for rapidly approving export of enough active ingredients to produce about 8.5 million doses of Sinovac Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine being made in Sao Paulo, as his government scrambles to secure scarce shots.
Bolsonaro tweeted that China has also fast-tracked approval for supplies of active ingredients to make AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine in Brazil.
Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who says he will not take any Covid-19 shot, has been criticised for the slow and patchy nature of Brazil’s vaccine roll-out.
The setbacks to the national immunisation plan are the latest example of his poor handling of the pandemic, critics say. Latin America’s largest nation has over 217,000 Covid-19 deaths, second in the world after the United States.
Brazilians queue for oxygen as hospitals face shortages and run out of beds for Covid-19 patients
With few vaccines to inoculate Brazil’s 210 million people and a rampant second wave, the country now finds itself almost entirely reliant on the Sinovac vaccine that Bolsonaro, a China hawk, had previously ridiculed.
Brazil’s federally-funded Fiocruz Institute, which has a deal with AstraZeneca to produce up to 100 million doses of its vaccine, said on Monday it expects China to send the active ingredient needed to make the shots locally around February 8.
It had previously said it could deliver finished doses in March, but now says it will await the Chinese shipment before giving a more specific time frame.
www.scmp.com
- The Chinese shipments mean Brazil will have ingredients to make 8.5 million doses of Sinovac’s shot, as well as some of AstraZeneca’s
- Bolsonaro, who previously ridiculed the Sinovac product, has been come under fire for the country’s slow vaccine roll-out
Demonstrators hold a protest against Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro in Brasilia on January 17. Photo: AFP
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, a long-time China sceptic, thanked Beijing on Monday for rapidly approving export of enough active ingredients to produce about 8.5 million doses of Sinovac Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine being made in Sao Paulo, as his government scrambles to secure scarce shots.
Bolsonaro tweeted that China has also fast-tracked approval for supplies of active ingredients to make AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine in Brazil.
Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who says he will not take any Covid-19 shot, has been criticised for the slow and patchy nature of Brazil’s vaccine roll-out.
The setbacks to the national immunisation plan are the latest example of his poor handling of the pandemic, critics say. Latin America’s largest nation has over 217,000 Covid-19 deaths, second in the world after the United States.
Brazilians queue for oxygen as hospitals face shortages and run out of beds for Covid-19 patients
With few vaccines to inoculate Brazil’s 210 million people and a rampant second wave, the country now finds itself almost entirely reliant on the Sinovac vaccine that Bolsonaro, a China hawk, had previously ridiculed.
Brazil’s federally-funded Fiocruz Institute, which has a deal with AstraZeneca to produce up to 100 million doses of its vaccine, said on Monday it expects China to send the active ingredient needed to make the shots locally around February 8.
It had previously said it could deliver finished doses in March, but now says it will await the Chinese shipment before giving a more specific time frame.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro thanks China for fast-tracking Covid-19 vaccine supplies
The Chinese shipments mean Brazil will have ingredients to make 8.5 million doses of Sinovac’s shot, which the president had once ridiculed.
www.scmp.com
