Brazil Is Running Out of Ingredients for Astra, Sinovac Shots
- There is only enough supply to produce shots through the week
- Fiocruz looking at alternatives to keep delivering vaccines
Ingredients used to produce AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 shot in Brazil could run out by the end of the week, exacerbating an already precarious mass vaccine campaign that has struggled to ramp up local production.
The Rio de Janeiro-based research institute Fiocruz, which partnered with Astra to produce the shot locally, has enough of the so called IFA -- the active ingredient to make the vaccines -- to sustain output until early next week. It may have to halt production if the next batch doesn’t arrive by Saturday, Fiocruz’s Bio-Manguinhos Director Mauricio Zuma said in an interview.
“We are waiting for AstraZeneca’s confirmation to know if it will arrive this week or next,” said Zuma, who leads the so-called Bio-Manguinhos unit of Fiocruz, which is responsible for research and vaccine production. “If it arrives next week, we may have to stop production for a few days.”