Pressed to help other countries in the fight against the health crisis, the United States said on Tuesday (4) that part of this support could come to Brazil – that it exceeded 411 thousand deaths from Covid – 19 and had just faced two months at most. deadly pandemic.
The White House announced it was working to send $ 20 million worth of drugs used to intubate patients with Covid-19.
According to spokeswoman Jen Psaki, the items will come from the US government’s strategic stockpile and will be delivered in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization.
She did not provide further details on when the submission is expected to take place and said the matter had not been finalized, but was a “continuing effort”. The support aims to “offset peaks in global supplies” and enable Brazil to receive enough medicine for its immediate needs, Psaki said.
The announcement comes a week after Joe Biden’s government confirmed it was sending inputs for the production of vaccines, tests, drugs, mechanical respirators and personal protective equipment to India.
The Asian country has become the third country in the world death rankings – behind only Brazil and the United States – and is experiencing a collapse of its health system, with a lack of beds and oxygen, and a queue to cremate his dead. India has more than 222,000 deaths, according to official data, which many consider to be grossly underestimated.
With a population of 1.3 billion, the second largest in the world, just behind China, and the emergence of a new variant, B.1.617, now dominant among cases in the country, the uncontrolled pandemic is a matter of concern.
The new strain is being studied to see if it is more dangerous than the original form of the virus, but its rapid spread across India and 16 other countries is already cause for concern.
Politically, however, India is part of the Quad – short for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – a partnership with Japan, Australia and the United States to combat China’s expansion, which has also reached agreements to help other countries with delivery and supplies of vaccines, as part of the race for pandemic geopolitics.
Later on Tuesday, the US president indicated at a press conference that Brazil may be among the countries that will receive vaccinations that remain in the United States – the country announced last week that it will release until to 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. .
The immunizer, made in partnership with the University of Oxford, has yet to be approved in the United States. So far, the country is vaccinating its population with products from three manufacturers – Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
During the announcement, the Democratic administration did not specify which countries would be listed to receive the doses, but to a question from a GloboNews journalist on Tuesday on the distribution criteria and whether Brazil and India would appear. on this list, the president opened up the possibility of delivering vaccines to the Brazilian government.
“Regarding the Astrazeneca vaccine that we have, we’ve sent it to Canada and Mexico and we’re talking to other countries. I actually spoke to a head of state today. am not ready to announce who else we will send the vaccine to too, but we will have sent it 10% of what we have until July 4th for other countries, including some of the ones you mentioned ” , Biden said.
The Brazilian government has been criticized for not speeding up vaccination, among other reasons due to the delay in delivering ready-to-use doses and supplies for manufacture in the country.
Brazil has even consulted in the past on the possibility of receiving the surplus AstraZeneca in the United States, but the response was that the United States government would prioritize the vaccination of its own population.
Shipment of around 4 million units of AstraZeneca’s immunizer to Canada and Mexico – 1.5 million and 2.5 million doses each, respectively – was announced in March.
In relation to the Mexican government, the sending of vaccines was seen as a way of caressing the country to tighten border controls with the United States, which is going through a serious migratory crisis and the greatest flow of immigrants from from Mexico for 20 years.
The safety of the AstraZeneca immunizer has been questioned after rare cases of blood clots were reported in Europe. European countries have come to suspend or restrict use. The European Union regulatory agency (EMA), however, concluded that the vaccine’s benefits outweighed its potential risks and recommended that governments in the bloc retain the requests, adding a warning to the product package insert. .