Pharmaceutical ingredients from afar help Brazil as it battles to control COVID-19

Brazil, which has the second-highest COVID-19 death toll in the world, is ramping up its fight against the novel coronavirus with China's active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs, to make vaccines.

"The supply of the APIs is of great relevance," said Henrique de Moura Reis, international relations manager at the China Trade Center Group, an organization that seeks to promote trade and other ties between China and Brazil. "With that shipment of supplies, the Brazilian government will be able to guarantee production of more than 100 million doses for the country's national vaccination campaign."

The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, a publicly funded biomedical institute commonly known as Fiocruz, has secured enough APIs made in China to resume production of tens of millions of doses of AstraZeneca's Vaxzevria vaccine this year.

Fiocruz, based in Rio de Janeiro, said the shipments earlier this year would ensure enough raw materials for 50 million doses of vaccines, bringing its total production this year to about 100 million doses.

"We are currently seeing a revolution in the field of vaccines, with fast responses and the satisfaction of having this production in Brazil already," said Marco Krieger, vice-president for production and innovation at Fiocruz.

With the virus continuing to spread, there are high expectations that the new supplies of raw materials from China will help boost production of vaccines and speed up jabs.

About 425 kilometers away, the Butantan Institute, another public institution, makes CoronaVac vaccines developed by Sinovac Biotech with supplies of APIs from China. Butantan gets the raw materials from China and then finishes and packages the vaccines at its facilities in Sao Paulo.

Brazil aims to eventually produce its own APIs to make COVID-19 injections developed by both Sinovac and AstraZeneca, but for the time being it is reliant on China for its supply of active vaccine ingredients.

National drive

The Butantan Institute was forced to halt production on June 15 after it delivered 5 million doses to the national vaccination program and exhausted 3,000 liters of APIs received on May 25.

A new shipment of 6,000 liters of APIs arrived in Brazil last month, allowing for the production of another 10 million doses, Butantan said. Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria preemptively celebrated the shipment of raw materials by tweeting that there will be "more vaccines for Brazilians' arms".

Securing the supply of Chinese APIs to continue with the production of AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccines in Brazil required a coordinated diplomatic strategy between Brasilia and Beijing, an effort in which China's Ambassador Yang Wanming has played a key role. China and Brazil are committed to fighting the pandemic together and that will continue to strengthen ties, Yang said.

China's Wuxi Biologics makes the APIs necessary to manufacture AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine.

By Friday, Brazil's COVID-19 case tally stood at more than 18.5 million, the third-highest in the world after the United States and India, and the death count exceeded 518,000, next only to the US, according to the World Health Organization.

Using the Chinese APIs, the Bio-Manguinhos facility of Fiocruz in Rio de Janeiro has the capacity to make up to 15 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines a month, and the Butantan Institute has delivered more than 50 million doses of CoronaVac vaccines to the national immunization campaign against COVID-19, since its production began in December.

Brazil is expanding its portfolio of vaccines against the coronavirus and is forging a deal with CanSino Biologics of China to source 60 million doses of Convidecia, a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 that requires only one shot to create immunity.

According to officials, CanSino's vaccines will start arriving in the third quarter of the year. Anvisa, the Brazilian healthcare regulator, is now reviewing a request for emergency approval of CanSino's vaccine in Brazil.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.