The Health Secretary of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Daniel Soranz, said in an interview with CNN this Wednesday (22) that the city hall had the request for childhood vaccines against Covid-19 denied by Pfizer due to negotiations for new doses that the pharmaceutical company already has in progress with the Ministry of Health.
There are 100 million doses contracted to the company by the federal government, scheduled to arrive in January, and a portion of this, not defined, may go to children, said the secretary.
The city of Rio de Janeiro will now wait for the Ministry of Health to announce the start of the immunization calendar for the age group between 5 and 11 years old.
The city planned to purchase vaccines directly from Pfizer to initiate immunization in this age group against Covid-19.
“We started negotiating with Pfizer today [para a compra de vacinas infantis], but, unfortunately, she replied that she cannot proceed with the negotiation because she has already signed a contract with the Ministry of Health, has already sold 100 million doses and most likely delivers vaccines for children in January to the Ministry,” he said.
“So there is no longer any need for any state or municipality to negotiate directly with the company, as the Ministry of Health already has a signed contract.”
The municipal secretary of Health in Rio also said that the federal government has already delayed negotiations with Pfizer at other times and hopes that this will not be repeated.
According to Soranz, Rio de Janeiro wants the announcement of a schedule. He echoes the appeal of Mayor Eduardo Paes, made during an event this Wednesday. “The truth is, what I hope is that the federal government will soon announce the decision to vaccinate the children”, declared Paes.
However, the federal government’s decision should only come in January. This Thursday (23), the Ministry of Health starts a public consultation on childhood vaccination against Covid-19, which runs until January 2nd. On January 4th, there will be a public hearing on the subject.
The secretary questioned the public consultation. “It doesn’t make any sense that a vaccine that is already being used in several countries around the world, with excellent results, was also approved by our regulatory body, Anvisa. What the Ministry of Health needs to do is speed up the request to Pfizer as much as possible,” he told CNN.
Carnival maintained, but under observation
Soranz also stated that the holding of Carnival in the city is maintained, in view of the current controlled levels of contamination and hospitalizations by the coronavirus, but indicated that this could be the event that could be reviewed if the numbers worsen again.
“Right now we are analyzing the number of cases, it is very small and we have the lowest transmission rate since the beginning of the pandemic, 0.6”, he said.
“Today we have a very favorable scenario. If there is any sign of an increase or new information about new variants that justify further restrictive measures, we will be the first to alert.”
Reference: CNN Brasil
