In August last year, when Brazil had emerged as among the worst-hit nations by the COVID-19 pandemic, Pfizer Inc offered the Brazilian Ministry of Health to set aside as many as 70 million doses of the vaccine it was developing. It got no answer. So it made the offer again. And then a third time.
The next month, the company’s former Brazil head, Carlos Murillo, told the Brazilian Congress that Pfizer’s global chief put the offer in writing to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro with copies to the vice president, chief of staff, ministers of health and economy, and ambassador to the US.
He never heard back.
The severity of COVID-19 in Brazil, with more than 16.6 million cases and 465,199 lives lost, has often been attributed to Bolsonaro, who still wades unvaccinated and maskless into crowds.
However, a congressional probe is making clear that his neglect has been matched by incompetence at nearly every level of government in key processes — negotiations with drug companies, relations with other countries and supply chain management.
“We could be vaccinating 2 million people a day,” says Carla Domingues, who ran Brazil’s national immunization program for most of the past decade. “If Brazil had signed agreements last year, we could have been in a privileged position, just like the US or the UK.”
Instead, while some parts of the world are putting the pandemic behind them, in Brazil 2,000 still die daily. Although vaccinations are occurring, vital local production breaks down every few weeks as ingredients run out. With winter in the southern hemisphere looming and social distancing falling away, health officials fear a third wave.
The congressional hearings are uncovering a range of failures, starting with the Pfizer efforts. It took three more offers and six more months for Brazil to close an agreement. Vaccines only began to arrive piecemeal in late April, with larger batches expected after next month.
The dealings with Pfizer were far from the sole misstep in vaccinations. Planeloads of shots were delayed; misplaced boosters sat at a warehouse as cities halted immunizations after using everything as first doses; and a top Bolsonaro aide got vaccinated in secret.
The government notes that it has delivered tens of millions of shots, putting it among the top countries globally in terms of vaccines deployed.
However, that covers only 10 percent of its 212 million inhabitants with both shots, compared with 36 percent in the UK, the next state on the ranking.
At the congressional hearings, testimony by former Brazilian minister of health Eduardo Pazuello has only added to the sense of bewilderment. He denied that he neglected the Pfizer negotiations, saying he “always” tried to buy shots, but regulations prevented him from doing so.
He also denied that Bolsonaro ordered him to halt the purchase of China’s CoronaVac shots in October last year, saying he never got a formal order to do so.
At the time, Bolsonaro wrote on social media: “The Brazilian people WON’T BE ANYONE’S GUINEA PIG,” adding that he would not buy the vaccine.
Pazuello, an army general, responded days later by saying: “One commands, the other obeys.”
Dimas Covas, the director of the Butantan Institute, which is producing the shot locally, told a different story.
Testifying at the hearings on Thursday last week, Covas said that his initial offer — 60 million doses — also went unanswered.
Talks progressed after meetings in August last year and a deal was ready to be signed in October — until Bolsonaro stepped in, putting any agreement on hold.
CoronaVac has been a source of political divide because of its origins. Boosted by Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, it was repeatedly bashed by the president, who seemed to celebrate the suspension of clinical trials after a volunteer died, calling it “another win.”
Covas said that Butantan started to have problems recruiting volunteers for its clinical trials amid intense attacks against the vaccine, especially on social media, although he did not name Bolsonaro.
As options dwindled, the government bought CoronaVac, but by then, it was January. The damage to the proposed time line was done, and a new, more aggressive variant was emerging in the country.
Butantan and Fiocruz, which partnered with AstraZeneca PLC, have faced delays in getting ready-made doses and active ingredients. The resurgence of the virus in India, bureaucracy at home and abroad, and diplomatic blunders — weeks ago Bolsonaro suggested the Chinese created the virus as “biological warfare” — have all been blamed. The ministry has repeatedly cut forecasts of how many vaccines will be available, and forced Fiocruz and Butantan to halt production.
“The initial estimates were made without a lot of technical information,” said Mauricio Zuma, who leads the unit of Fiocruz responsible for research and vaccine production. “Reality turned out a bit different than what we planned.”
The health ministry’s goal of 1 million vaccinations a day has been reached only occasionally, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
Daily numbers have been trending lower, and the schedule for deliveries of more shots is cloudy.
Political infighting over the pandemic will continue as the congressional probe is expected to last for months.
The investigation has seen its fair share of drama — threats of arrest, heated arguments and a brief suspension after Pazuello experienced a drop in blood pressure from six hours of questioning.
Efforts to remove Bolsonaro from office are unlikely to gain traction while he maintains a solid base of support among centrist parties and his own voters, but the investigation gives the president’s rivals a powerful platform to attack him.
The sessions, which have taken over political news, often feature video clips of Bolsonaro dismissing the severity of COVID-19 and the need for vaccines.
Doria posted a meme showing himself as an alligator holding his vaccination card, a reference to the fact that Bolsonaro joked that the Pfizer shot could turn people into the reptile.
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is plotting a comeback, told supporters in March: “Don’t listen to any idiotic decisions from the president or the health minister. Get vaccinated.”
The president’s mockery of vaccines has had an effect on those around him. Last month, his chief of staff, Brazilian Army General Luiz Eduardo Ramos, was caught admitting to clandestinely getting vaccinated.
“I got it in secret,” Ramos said at a meeting in late April, unaware that he was being recorded. “I’ll be honest because I, like everyone, want to live.”
He and the other participants did not know that the meeting was being streamed online.
“Brazil could have led vaccinations globally,” Covas said. “The government just didn’t understand the importance.”
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