COVID-19: 320 million shots have been administered in Brazil

Brazil’s Ministry of Health informed on Tuesday (Dec. 28) that 320 million vaccines against COVID-19 have been administered in the country. The wide immunization of the population has led to a reduction in the number of cases of infected people, deaths and hospitalization in ICUs, the document says.

According to the Ministry, 143 million Brazilians have completed the full vaccine cycle, 161 million have been immunized with the first dose of the vaccine and 16 million have received at least one booster dose.

"Due to the good progress of vaccination, it has been possible to reduce by more than 90% the number of deaths and the number of COVID-19 cases, when compared to the pandemic peak, in April, 2021. Today, in Brazil, we have the lowest number of deaths by COVID-19 since April, 2020”, Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga reiterates.

With the reduction in the number of COVID-19 cases, the Brazilian government has established, on Dec. 20, the rules for donating vaccines to other countries, through the Covax consortium.

The AstraZeneca immunizing agents in Brazil have been produced by Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), since the import of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API). Meanwhile, Fiocruz has also started producing the API itself. Pfizer vaccines, with messenger RNA technology, will also be made in Brazil by Eurofarma laboratory.

"Brazil will no longer be a vaccine importing country, it will rather be a vaccine producing country", the minister says.