Today: A potential new coronavirus vaccine. The crisis in the Foreign Affairs Ministry. And the growing dissatisfaction with President Bolsonaro.
A Brazilian coronavirus vaccine is closer than ever
The São Paulo-based Butantan Biological Institute has developed its own potential vaccine against the coronavirus, dubbed the Butanvac. The organization is expected to file a request to federal regulators today to carry out human trials. Butantan is Brazil’s largest vaccine producer and is already responsible for the local production of the Chinese-made CoronaVac, which accounts for the lion’s share of jabs handed out in Brazil so far.
- Per the São Paulo state government, the Butanvac is being developed by way of a consortium also involving Vietnamese and Thai labs.
UPDATE: Despite claims by the São Paulo government, the Butanvac is not 100-percent Brazilian. It has, in reality, been developed by the Icahn School of Medicine at New York-based Mount Sinai Health System. In December 2020, the hospital published a study describing the possibility of using the current influenza virus vaccine production capacity to manufacture an egg-based inactivated Newcastle disease virus.
Why it matters. Besides the federal government’s mismanagement, Brazil’s vaccination campaign has been hamstrung by problems procuring doses and inputs from abroad....