Why Covaxin Deal With Brazil Got Suspended? Here Is An Explainer
Brazil Government signed a deal to buy 20million doses of India’s Covaxin. This deal made noise in February, this year. This deal was worth 1.6 Billion Reais, around 2,400 Crore Indian Rupees.
Two sensational testimonials in front of the Brazil Parliament objected that, President Bolsonaro had agreed to this deal, which is costlier than many of the international vaccines, that too when it lacked local regulatory approvals.
CovaxinGate Scandal
In March, a Brazilian Health Ministry official, Luis Ricardo Miranda, informed President Bolsonaro about pressure being brought on him to buy Covaxin despite certain red flags that he had raised over purchasing a tranche of doses.
According to Miranda, who was one of the whistleblowers who appeared on Friday, the government received an invoice worth $45 million for 30 lakh doses of the vaccine from an entity that found no mention in the February deal.
Miranda said he was concerned because this firm, Singapore-based Madison Biotech, apparently gave the impression of being a shell company. The vaccines too had not arrived in Brazil, and neither had Covaxin received regulatory approval.
Miranda claimed that he began receiving phone calls from superiors putting “atypical, excessive” pressure on him to approve the payment.
As allegations mounted, prosecutors opened an investigation, and the government cancelled the deal. The newspaper Estado de S. Paulo reported that although Bharat Biotech had initially quoted a price of $1.34 per dose, the Brazilian government had agreed to pay $15 per shot — after having ignored an offer from Pfizer in 2020 at a lower price. (Inputs From Various Brazil Media Houses)
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