(Pic: Cassiano Rosário/Futura Press/EstadãoConteúdo)During a meeting held this Monday (03/08), with the presence of Eduardo Pazuello (the Minister of Health), Wellington Dias (the Governor of the State of Piauí and representative of the National Governors’ Forum) and Carlos Alberto Chaves (the Health Secretary of the State of Rio de Janeiro), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) announced the beginning of the large-scale production of Covid-19 vaccine.

During the session, the representatives of Fiocruz have also provided information on the forecast to deliver 3.8 million doses in March, on the production rhythm, and on the efforts to import finished vaccines that the Foundation has been taking before the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa) to accelerate the delivery of the batches produced, in accordance with the safety conditions of the vaccine.

The production of the pre-validation and validation batches ended last Sunday (03/07), with consistency and stability tests compliant with the parameters intended. These batches may also be incorporated into Fiocruz deliveries to the National Immunization Program (PNI), if approved by Anvisa. With the start of the operations of the first line this Monday (03/08), Fiocruz will introduce the gradual production escalation. 

The first line active today produces around 300,000 doses a day. Later this week, if the vaccines are produced as expected, a second line shall become operative to increase the productive capacity. We expect to have two lines running by the end of March, with a daily production of approximately one million doses.

Due to a failure in one of the packaging equipment, there was an interruption to the production of the validation batches, a stage required to ensure the quality and effectiveness control of the vaccine. The problem has already been solved, but it had an impact on the schedule of deliveries for March. In April, the production rhythm will be resumed, and about 30 million doses are expected to be delivered.

This Monday (08/08), the remaining documents to attain the definitive registration of the vaccine were sent to Anvisa. We expect that the registration can be granted this week. 

Concurrently, Fiocruz keeps looking for alternatives to provide the PNI with vaccines. So far, four million doses produced by Serum Institute have already been supplied and prepared for distribution by the Institute of Technology in Immunobiology (Bio-Manguinhos/Fiocruz), out of the 12 million doses already agreed to with AstraZeneca. In addition, Fiocruz will provide technical support for the receipt of Covax Facility vaccines, which may represent around 2.9 million doses of finished vaccines in March.

Source: Fiocruz News Agency (AFN).