“We are going to lose about 470,000 AstraZeneca vaccines because they no longer make sense in our plan, but there is an effort - either by Infarmed or by the Ministry of Health - to acquire vaccines from European partners and this effort can bring about one million vaccines, which is very important for the acceleration of the vaccination process”, stated Henrique Gouveia e Melo.

“We had greater availability of vaccines in July, we would have less availability in August, were it not for these negotiations that are being successfully conducted by the Ministry of Health and Infarmed to get Janssen and Pfizer vaccines from European partners to strengthen the process”, he added.

In the last quarter of 2021, Gouveia e Melo said that the initial expectation pointed to the reception of 8.5 million vaccines, but, only 5.2 million vaccines will likely arrive in the country.

In terms of the progress of the vaccination process, the coordinator of the task force stressed once again his forecast of reaching 70 percent of first doses administered around August 8.

Henrique Gouveia e Melo also drew a picture of the vaccination process by age groups, summarizing that “the age groups over 60 are practically totally protected”; in the age group of 50 years there is still 4 percent to complete the vaccination schedule and in the 40 years this percentage of missing vaccination coverage is 10 percent.

“We are also very advanced in our 30s, advancing strongly in our 20s and now planning for the lower age group”, said the task force coordinator.