Brazil’s PM asks India to expedite vaccine shipment

New Delhi, January 09: In a major development, writing a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro requested him to expedite a shipment of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine amid broader delays to the vaccine's arrival in Brazil.

 

Bolsonaro's press office released the letter on social media and wrote in the letter, "To enable the immediate implementation of our National Immunization Program, I would appreciate ... the supply to Brazil, with the possible urgency and without jeopardizing the Indian vaccination program, of 2 million doses."

 

His message to Modi comes as the federally funded Fiocruz biomedical center said on Friday that the active ingredients needed to fill and finish millions of doses of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine in Brazil, previously slated to arrive in the country on Saturday, may not land until the end of the month.

 

Fiocruz, which was counting on the shipment Saturday to supply the government with doses this month, said it was in talks to import more finished doses of the vaccine, likely from India on top of the 2 million it has already ordered. Earlier, Fiocruz requested an emergency use authorization for AstraZeneca vaccines coming from India, which are expected to arrive in Brazil in the middle of this month.

 

This comes amid growing pressure to speed up Brazil's vaccine rollout as the death toll due to COVID-19 in Brazil passed 200,000. With that Brazil has the second-highest number of fatalities after the US. According to health ministry data, Brazil registered 1,524 additional deaths over the past 24 hours.