Covid-19, a perpetual war
"This could be a perpetual war," Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said on Thursday during a debate at the Senate Covid-19 Temporary Committee. This apparently unassuming statement has more basis than it seems. Experts say people will have to be vaccinated against Covid-19 every year, and that this tends to be the government's biggest expenditure with medicines to fight the disease and its mutations. The health industry will become strategic in the world. "We have to get ready for a long battle," one specialist says.
In this context, Brazil should be a major global player, opening the production of vaccines to the private sector. Today, 99% of the vaccines belong to the Health Ministry. At least two laboratories, besides state-owned Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and Butantan Institute, tried unsuccessfully to set foot in this field, but the federal government allegedly failed to support these efforts. Minas Gerais-based Funeb is one. It started talks with Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm, but they fell apart. Paraná-based Tecpar is another. It tried to produce the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, but also failed to reach an agreement. União Química is currently the only private-sector company producing a vaccine - precisely Russia's Sputnik V.
It is quite likely that Health Ministry authorities have favored the production of the vaccine by Fiocruz because the price is much more attractive than the others. Each shot of AstraZeneca's costs around R$10, compared with R$50 of other drugmakers, while Butantan's Coronavac goes for R$58. The most expensive vaccine, however, is the one that does not exist.
Minister Guedes admits that it may have been a great "illusion" to believe, at the end of last year, that the war against the pandemic was over. "[Those remarks] had no malicious intent," he said. The new strain came, and the way out now "is mass, accelerated vaccination. We must go get the vaccine wherever it is," said the minister. He said he may exempt from taxes those vaccines imported by the private sector. According to him, if the government was able to inoculate 1 million people per day, in 60 days the country may see "a new horizon."
In this respect, he is completely in line with the letter from economists and bankers released on Sunday as a warning cry for the worsening pandemic, which already claimed more than 300,000 lives in one year. "[About] accelerating vaccination, I agree. [About] wearing masks, I always wear them. Social distancing? I...
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