Coronavac is still a good vaccine option, says new Butantan director

The new director of the Butantan Institute, infectologist Esper Kallás, says that Coronavac remains an excellent option for a vaccine against Covid, even with the offer of reinforcement of Pfizer’s bivalent immunizer announced by the Ministry of Health for from February 27th.

“It is very well tolerated, immunogenic, extremely safe and has a very good acceptability”, he told the Sheet Kallás, who took over the direction of the institute at the beginning of January, after taking a leave of absence from his position as full professor at the Faculty of Medicine at USP.

The Ministry of Health plans to use the vaccine produced by Butantan —and created by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac—only for children aged 3 to 11 years. The folder announced that it had signed a contract amendment with the institute to purchase a total of 2.6 million doses.

This Monday (30), Kallás will meet with the ministry to discuss, among other things, the portfolio’s interest in possible new acquisitions. He argues that Coronavac, which was the first vaccine to be applied in the country during the pandemic, in January 2021, remains a good alternative for adults too.

“There is a lot of discussion about alternating products to stimulate the response [imunológica], which increases antibody titers. In a situation like Covid, where everything is unstable, having all the cards on the table is a good strategy to avoid running the risk of shortages.”

According to the infectologist, all doses produced by Butantan de Coronavac have already been delivered to the ministry. As in the Bolsonaro government there was no prospect of new acquisitions, the institute decided to wait for the portfolio change to organize new imports of the API (active pharmaceutical ingredient), the raw material of the vaccine.

Kallás says that an effort is needed from the federal, state and municipal governments to increase vaccination coverage against Covid.

“With the reduction in the number of cases, there was a certain accommodation. But it is possible to make a rescue with actions that call attention.”

Another path, according to him, is to work on regional inequalities, since some municipalities have high vaccination coverage and others have not reached 50% of the target public.

For the director, the relationship of the state government, of Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), with the current federal administration, of Lula (PT) has everything to be “very good”. “The vision of the state government and the federal government is very consonant in relation to the rescue of vaccine coverage and the prevention of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

During the pandemic, Butantan found itself at the center of a political dispute between the then governor of São Paulo, João Doria (who was from the PSDB), and the management of Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

Recently, the institute was again the target of controversy, this time involving suspected irregularities in its support foundation, currently managed by the former director of the institute and current president of the Butantan Foundation, Dimas Covas.

Among the suspicions is the possible overbilling of BRL 161 million in a contract made without bidding with a software company, investigated by the State Court of Auditors (TCE), as revealed by Folha.

The Butantan Foundation is a non-profit private entity whose objective is to manage the institute’s financial resources, obtained mainly through the sale of vaccines and serums to the Ministry of Health. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the foundation’s revenue jumped from around R$1.9 billion in 2019 to more than R$2.7 billion in 2020, according to the entity’s financial statement.

Kallás defends the foundation’s model for providing administrative and financial speed, including for hiring researchers, and says that, based on a strategic alliance approved last November, the link between the institute and the foundation will be closer and there will be more transparency in the use of expenses.

He claims that he has also invited the president of the TCE (State Court of Auditors), Dimas Ramalho, to pay a visit to the foundation to discuss terms of conduct, also aiming at more transparency in relations.

The foundation’s expenses must be committed to activities of interest to the institute, such as research, technological development and innovation. The Doria government, however, used the surplus of this revenue for purchases related to the Covid pandemic, for example in the purchase of hospital supplies and equipment, which in theory are the responsibility of the State government.

Kallás says that the foundation’s main point of support in relation to the institute is hiring employees to expand the vaccine production center and training the workforce, since new hires by the state government are paralyzed.

Among the institute’s expansion projects are the renovation and readjustment of the building for the production of the vaccine against dengue, which is in the final stage of clinical studies, and the preparation for obtaining the license of good manufacturing practices for the multipurpose vaccine factory (also called by CMPV), whose work was completed in March 2021 after more than six months of delay.

Currently, the factory machinery is in the testing phase to file a request with Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) to start production of the first doses at the center.

“The construction of a factory is a big project, which depends on this relationship between the foundation and the institute, with many associated professionals”, he said.