Brasília – Brazil’s Ministry of Health announced on Monday (20) that it will donate at least 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to lower-income countries under Covax Facility sharing scheme led by the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as to neighboring countries.
The initiative was detailed by Health minister Marcelo Queiroga and ambassador Paulino Franco de Carvalho Neto, who’s the acting Foreign Affairs minister. According to them, president Jair Bolsonaro has signed a provisional measure allowing for the donation of immunizers.
Queiroga said that, besides the first 10 million doses, other 20 million could be donated later, reaching at least 30 million doses. The donation itself will depend on the expression of interest of the benefited country.
“Guided by the principle of solidarity, we favored operations under the Covax scheme in order to allow that vaccines reach those in need,” Queiroga said. The acting Foreign minister added that, “due to the successful rollout of the domestic vaccination campaign,” Brazil has decided to support Latin America, Caribbean and Africa states,” with a significant donation of doses.”
Queiroga assured that the initiative will not compromise the immunization strategy of the Brazilian population and said that the pandemic response requires cooperation between countries. “Despite the common knowledge of the extensive immunization as a global public good, only 5.2% of the population in lower-income countries have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine. Ninety-eight countries are still under 40% of the immunization coverage. Forty-one haven’t even reached 10%. We’ll only be safe when everyone is safe,” Queiroga said.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
