SAO PAULO (Reuters) – The state of Sao Paulo might roll out the COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac even with out approval from Brazil’s well being regulator, the state’s governor mentioned in an interview on Thursday.
The remark from Joao Doria comes amid concern amongst some critics of President Jair Bolsonaro that the independence of Brazil’s well being regulator Anvisa is underneath risk.
In a video interview on the information web site Metropoles, Doria mentioned Sao Paulo might use the vaccine from Sinovac Biotech Ltd primarily based on approval from well being regulators in different international locations.
“In the present day, there’s suspicion that Anvisa might endure political interference from the presidency and will fail to be an impartial company correctly, because it have to be,” he mentioned.
He added the state would contemplate the vaccine acceptable to be used if accepted by authorities “in the US, in Europe and, above all, in Asia.”
Doria, a staunch opponent of Bolsonaro, has already ordered the development of services to supply the Sinovac vaccine, which is at the moment present process late-stage trials in Sao Paulo and elsewhere in Brazil.
Bolsonaro, a strident China critic, has ceaselessly dismissed the Sinovac vaccine, often known as Coronavac, saying he’s involved about its “origin.”
To this point, the federal authorities’s principal guess has been on a vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca, although federal well being officers have additionally held discussions with different vaccine builders, similar to Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer Ltd.
Anvisa didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
(Reporting by Eduardo Simões; Writing by Gram Slattery; Enhancing by Tom Brown)
