The Ministry of Health distributes more than 4 million vaccines to the states

The Ministry of Health announced the distribution of another 4.04 million vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. New doses of the fortifying agent produced by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) should reach all capitals by dawn on Thursday (10).

Vaccination standards, set in the National Immunization Plan (PNI), specify that states and municipalities give priority to older adults, people with comorbidities, people with permanent disabilities, basic education workers, port and air transport workers, security and rescue forces, and members of the armed forces. and riverine peoples, indigenous peoples and quilombolas.

Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Vicruz, a scientific institution associated with the Ministry of Health, is responsible, in Brazil, for the manufacture of the vaccine developed through a partnership between Oxford University and the English pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. To make production in the country viable, a technology transfer agreement was signed last year.

Last week, Vucruz crossed the mark of more than 50 million vaccines against COVID-19 that were delivered to the National Institute of Statistics. This volume includes 4 million that were imported ready-made from India and began arriving in the country in January, before Brazilian production began. Large-scale manufacturing began at the Fiocruz Institute of Technology in Immunobiology (Bio-Manguinhos) in March.

To date (9), the Ministry of Health has completed the distribution of 2.3 million doses of the vaccine produced in partnership between Pfizer and BioNTech. This batch of imported immunization agents began arriving in the states at the beginning of the week.

According to data from Locate, a platform run by the Ministry of Health, has already had 74.5 million doses applied across the country. To date, 23.4 million people have completed the two-dose vaccination programme, which represents about 11% of the Brazilian population.