US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH PRESSURED BRAZIL INTO REJECTING SPUTNIK V
By Tim Korso, Sputnik News.
March 16, 2021 | EDUCATE!
Above photo: Agustin Marcarian/Reuters.
The developers of the Russian vaccine against the coronavirus have condemned
the actions of the American authorities and stressed that nations should be
fighting as a united front against the pandemic.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has admitted in its
annual report that it used diplomatic relations in order to force Brazil,
one of the worst-hit countries in terms of the pandemic, to reject
authorisation of the Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V.
The American authorities put their actions down to the need to mitigate
efforts by Russia to boost its influence in the region, which, as the
departments paper argues, would be detrimental to the US safety and
security. The report did not elaborate on how Brazils approval of an
additional vaccine to fight the pandemic would undermine US security.
Brazil Struggles To Get Vaccines Despite Authorising Three Jabs
Brazil so far has authorised two vaccines for emergency use, the AstraZeneca
drug and the Chinese medication Sinovac. It has given full approval for the
American jab developed jointly by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE.
The country said in February that it was in talks to buy 20 million doses of
the Sinovac shot despite domestic trials showing around 50% efficacy. Brazil
has also been struggling to get AstraZeneca jabs, trying to buy shipments of
it from other countries. By February the country managed to get its hands on
2 million doses, but said it had only scratched the surface of the
shortfall. Another 8-million dose shipment was halted by the Indian
government.
The situation is even worse with the US-made Pfizer vaccine as Brazil has
only been able to procure a single vial of it so far. Brazilian President
Jair Bolsonaro criticised the terms of the deal proposed by the medical
giant, condemning the exemption of the company from liability in case the
delivery of the medicine goes wrong in some way. Despite that, the country
struck a deal for 100 million doses on 3 March.
Pfizer first proposed the deal to buy its vaccine back in 2020, but Brazil
turned down the original offer, now it appears to have had a change of
heart.
The Brazilian pharmaceutical company União Quimica was planning to produce
the Sputnik V anti-coronavirus jab domestically and expected swift
authorisation by the authorities. However, the countrys medical regulator
has so far stopped short of approving emergency use authorisation for
Sputnik V, despite the medicines effectiveness being confirmed in clinical
trials. The results of the latter were earlier published in the medical
journal The Lancet.
Brazil continues to occupy first place in the world in terms of the number
of daily new cases of COVID-19. So far, as many as 11.3 million cases have
been registered in the country since the start of the pandemic, with 275,105
individuals dying from the infection. The latest WHO report says over 85,000
new cases of coronavirus have been spotted in the country over the last 24
hours.