Coronavirus | India’s delay in releasing vaccines is perfectly understandable: Brazilian Ambassador

Ambassador of Brazil to India, André Aranha Correa do Lago.

In an interview to The Hindu’s Suhasini Haidar thanking the government and the Serum Institute of India (SII), Brazilian Ambassador Andre Aranha Correa do Lago spoke of the challenges ahead for Brazil, which has the world’s second highest deaths from the coronavirus pandemic.

These vaccines were ordered and paid for by Fiocruz, the federal institution that is going to be the producer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in Brazil.

Because Brazil, like India, knows how delicate these issues are in internal politics.

Since our health regulator ANVISA had by then cleared two vaccines for emergency use: the AstraZeneca [vaccine] as well as [China’s] Sinovac, and [as] we had produced enough of Sinovac at the Butantan Institute, we decided to start with those.

Eventually once India cleared them, we dispatched the vaccines on an Emirates cargo plane, and are very grateful for that.

But the reasons given by India were perfectly understandable because Brazil also would not export its vaccines before starting to vaccinate its own population.

Also read | India says COVID-19 vaccine supply to other countries will take ‘some time’.

I understand Bharat Biotech have already asked for the approval of COVAX [Covaxin] at ANVISA, as some private groups would like to buy the vaccine.

Also read: Bharat Biotech to supply Covaxin to Brazil.

And I believe that this case has shown very strongly to all of Brazil, which now knows that India is the largest producer of vaccines in the world, that India is an industrialised country, not only the romantic picture of many religions, Yoga etc., that most Brazilians know about.

I think that it’s very important that India understands how much Brazil has advanced as well, and both must build a relationship based on a contemporary approach to each other?

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