The Butantan Institute of Sao Paulo, one of the main medical research centers in Brazil, started the production of 8.6 million doses of the Chinese laboratory Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine.
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"About 8.6 million new doses will be released for the immunization of Brazilians from Feb. 23," reported the Sao Paulo's government in a statement, without mentioning how long it will take to deliver the entire batch.
The Butantan Institute also received inputs to manufacture another 2.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca and Oxford University's vaccine.
The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation plans to receive two input batches to produce 15 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine by March.
"It is a moment of great expectation and we are sure that we will produce this vaccine for the National Immunization Program," said Fiocruz President Nisia Trindade.
Ten million units of Sinovac's vaccine and two million of AstraZeneca's vaccine have been distributed in Brazil since the vaccination campaign started early this year.
Brazil is going through a second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. As of Monday morning, this South American country had reported over 9.5 million COVID-cases and 231,561 related deaths.