Brazil awaiting 2 million vaccine doses from India

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BRASILIA, Jan 22, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The Brazilian government said Thursday
that a shipment of two million doses of the British AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-
19 vaccine was finally set to arrive in the country from India.

The delivery Friday would be a much-needed boost to Brazil’s vaccination
program.

“The two million doses of AstraZeneca should arrive in Brazil Friday in the
late afternoon,” the ministry of health said in a statement.

The doses were originally set to arrive in Brazil last week.

President Jair Bolsonaro blamed the delay on “political pressures” on the
government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prioritize vaccinations
in his own country first.

Brazil is the second-worst hit country by the coronavirus in the world —
only behind the United States — with more than 214,000 deaths among its 212
million inhabitants.

The government had been relying on the vaccine developed by British-Swedish
pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in collaboration with Oxford University
and the Fiocruz Foundation of the Brazilian Ministry of Health to launch its
inoculation drive.

But it had to be satisfied with the release last week of six million doses
of CoronaVac, which was developed by the Chinese lab Sinovac with the
Brazilian Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo.

That shot has been promoted by the governor of the state of Sao Paulo, Joao
Doria, who is seen as a potential rival of far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro
for the 2022 presidential race.

Both injections require two doses several weeks apart.