(Tony Winston/Ministério da Saúde)A new shipment of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) from China will guarantee deliveries of the Covid-19 vaccine until early June. The approximately 364 liters of the input arrived at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) last Saturday (April 24th), through the Institute of Technology in Immunobiologicals (Bio-Manguinhos), and are sufficient for the production of about 8.9 million immunizer doses.

The National Immunization Program (PNI), from the Ministry of Health, has already received 20 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from Fiocruz, with 4 million doses imported from India and 16 million produced in Bio-Manguinhos. Only last Friday (April 23rd), about 5.2 million vaccines were delivered, 500,000 doses more than the 4.7 million initially forecast for the week. On the previous day, Thursday (April 22nd), Fiocruz reached the milestone of 1 million doses produced in a single day for the first time.

Large-scale production

Fiocruz started on March 8th the operation of the first line for the production of the Covid-19 vaccine, with a daily capacity of 300,000 doses. On the following week, the Foundation delivered the first batch of vaccines to the National Immunization Program (PNI), with 1.8 million doses. For April, the forecast for deliveries is even better: 18.8 million doses.

In addition to the forecast of 100.4 million doses by the end of July 2021, Fiocruz is working to incorporate the raw material production technology (API) that will enable the production of another 110 million doses from the second half of this year.

With information from the Fiocruz News Agency (AFN).