By Bianca Oliveira
SAO PAULO – “The important thing is to have a safe and effective vaccine. Congress is going over the legislation it passed itself”, says the sanitary doctor and former director of the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), Gonzalo Vecina Neto, regarding the provisional measures (MP) that aim to facilitate the process of purchase and registration of vaccines against Covid-19.
MP 1003/2020, which is awaiting presidential sanction, proposes to expand the rule that determines the analysis of the importation and emergency use of vaccines or medicines already authorized by other health authorities. If approved, the change forces automatic approval in 5 days, a deadline that makes it impossible to properly analyze, according to Anvisa.
“There is a clear threat to the institution, Congress and the President of the Republic are ignoring the existing legal system that Anvisa must guarantee the health security of products and services for Brazilians. Anvisa had already agreed that a vaccine registered in the United States, Europe, Japan, China and Canada can go through a less bureaucratic registration here in Brazil. Now, the MP proposes four other countries that are not in the same pattern ”, explains Vecina, who was one of the founders of the Health Surveillance Agency in Brazil.
On the other hand, MP 1026/2021, pending in the Chamber of Deputies, determines that purchases of insumies and immunisants can be made without bidding and before the vaccine is registered with the regulatory agency. Based on this measure, the government published on Friday (19) two extracts of exemption from bidding for the purchase of the Sputnik V and Covaxin vaccines. The document ensures R $ 693.6 million for the purchase of the Russian vaccine and R $ 1.614 billion for the Indian vaccine.
Another point proposed by members is permission to purchase vaccines by the private sector, conditional on the donation of part of the doses to the public health system. Something that, in Vecina’s opinion,