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(Adds industry lobby backing private import attempt)
By Lisandra Paraguassu
BRASILIA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Brazil's President Jair
Bolsonaro on Tuesday said he has approved a group of private
sector companies to buy 33 million vaccine doses from
AstraZeneca Plc, something the British drugmaker firm
said cannot happen "at this moment."
Speaking at a virtual banking conference, Bolsonaro said
half of the shots would be for employees of the companies buying
them, and the other half would go to the government's national
immunization program.
Newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported that the proposal came
from a group of business leaders on a conference call on Monday
to discuss which firms and organizations would participate.
"I want to make it very clear that the federal government is
in favor of this group ... bringing the vaccine here to immunize
33 million people, at zero cost for the federal government,"
Bolsonaro said.
AstraZeneca, however, said in a statement on Tuesday that
all of its vaccine supply "at this moment" is only available to
governments and multilateral organizations around the world. "It
is not possible to make vaccines available to the private
sector," it said.
Several companies denied reports that they had joined the
initiative, including hospital group DASA SA, which
said in a statement it is seeking to understand the commercial
availability of vaccines through its suppliers.
The national industry lobby CNI, however, said that it was
backing an effort by some companies to import vaccines
privately, while respecting the priority given to the public
immunization plan, a spokesman for the CNI said.
Brazil's nationwide vaccination process got underway just
over a week ago but has been slow and patchy thus far, with
shipments of doses from India and China subject to delay.
Bolsonaro, who has played down the severity of COVID-19, has
insisted he will not take a vaccine.
Meanwhile, Brazilian biomedical center Butantan expects
supplies for around 8.5 million doses of China's CoronaVac
vaccine made by Sinovac Biotech to arrive by Feb. 3, its
director said on Tuesday.
Butantan Director Dimas Covas said he hopes the initial
shipment of about 5,400 liters of active ingredients, enough to
fill and finish some 8.5 million doses, would be followed by a
similar load shortly after.
He also said Butantan plans to have a factory fully
producing the Chinese vaccine by early next year.
(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia and Eduardo
Simoes in Sao Paulo; Writing by Jamie McGeever in Brasilia;
Editing by Bill Berkrot and Marguerita Choy)
