Army officers who remain in strategic posts at the Ministry of Health were responsible for hiring the company with no experience in the SUS to distribute pediatric vaccines and for part of the confusion that occurred in the distribution of the first doses to the states.
General Ridauto Lucio Fernandes, who went to the army reserve holding a two-star general rank, had to speed up the hiring of the company responsible for transporting Pfizer’s vaccine vials in December.
It was up to him to dispense with the bidding, act with “urgency”, be the originator of the expense and sign the contracts.
Lieutenant Colonel Reginaldo Ramos Machado passed on guidance to the states that was at the heart of part of the confusion caused in the distribution of the first batches of childhood vaccines.
Machado, according to reports made to the leaf, directed the search for immunization agents directly at the airports and stated that it was not the responsibility of the contracted company to transport the doses to the local storage centers. The Ministry of Health did not respond to questions in the report.
Fernandes and Machado are in key positions in the management of Minister Marcelo Queiroga (Health), even after the departure of the military who commanded the portfolio in the worst moments of the Covid pandemic.
General Eduardo Pazuello, who was Executive Secretary and Minister of Health from April 2020 to March 2021, militarized at least 20 posts of a technical nature, in line with a directive and a wish from President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
Pazuello is investigated on suspicion of crimes in the oxygen crisis in the Amazon, when patients died of asphyxiation in January 2021; was sued for administrative improbity in court, for having hampered the fight against the pandemic by delaying the purchase of vaccines, according to the MPF (Federal Public Ministry); and would have committed other crimes, according to the Covid CPI in the Senate.
Dismissed, the general was sheltered in a position of trust in the Planalto Palace. It was the same fate as his former right-hand man at the Ministry of Health, Colonel Elcio Franco Filho, who was responsible for the negotiations for the purchase of vaccines. Franco would also have committed crimes in the pandemic, according to the CPI’s final report.
The departure of Pazuello and the arrival of Queiroga did not put an end to the militarization of the Ministry of Health. General Ridauto Fernandes won the position of director of the DLOG (Department of Health Logistics), the area through which the main contracts of the portfolio pass.
Pazuello took Fernandes to the ministry to initially be an advisor to the DLOG, in January 2021, at a time when the director was Roberto Ferreira Dias, a name in the center with strength in the Bolsonaro government.
Less than two months later, Fernandes won the position of special advisor to Pazuello, exerting a direct influence on the direction of the ministry.
With the resignation of Pazuello and Dias, the latter on suspicion of collecting bribes in a parallel vaccine negotiation market, the advisor general became director of DLOG, in July 2021. He became responsible for the ministry’s main hiring.
While the Minister of Health adopted measures at the end of the year that postponed the start of vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 years against Covid-19, Fernandes was trying to make it possible to contract without bidding for the transport of doses.
An opinion by the AGU (Advocacy-General of the Union) indicated a lack of justification for the waiver of bidding; said that the period of up to five years foreseen for the contracts was reckless; charged analysis of costs of previous deliveries, to define prices; and identified a gap in the quantities to be transported.
Even so, the general ratified the waiver of bidding and the same contested terms, after technical notes from his department stated that there was compliance with the recommendations made by the legal consultancy with the ministry.
Fernandes demanded urgency in two letters. One of them was made on December 21. The following day, the general published the waiver of bidding and signed two contracts with IBL (Intermodal Brasil Logística), in the amount of R$ 62.2 million, for the storage and transport of 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, at a temperature from -90ºC to -60ºC.
IBL had no experience with the transport of vaccines in the SUS.
The first deliveries were marred by problems such as flight delays, lack of staff at airports, uncertainty over who should transport the immunizers to state warehouses, improper storage conditions and over-freezing of doses.
An orientation by Lieutenant Colonel Reginaldo Machado contributed to the confusion. He is director of the Department of Interfederative and Participatory Management of the Ministry of Health. The military man did not come to the position through Pazuello, but through Nelson Teich, who did not remain in the position of minister for even a month.
Machado took office in May 2020 and remains. It was he who, according to reports made to the report, guided the search for doses of pediatric vaccines directly at airports.
The orientation of the lieutenant colonel goes against specifications in documents that supported the contracting of IBL. It is up to the company to ensure transport to storage centers, as indicated by the Ministry of Health.
The ministry even admitted a “mismatch” in the distribution of vaccines. In a note, the ministry said that the Ministry’s superintendencies and state health departments were mobilized for transport from the airports and that this “caused a mismatch”.
“The folder emphasizes that the orientation for the deliveries of immunizers is the usual: the contracted company makes the transport”, said the ministry.
Before taking care of inter-federative management at the Ministry of Health, Machado was for six months, in the first year of the Bolsonaro government, director of Land Obtaining and Implementation of Settlement Projects at INCRA (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform).
The Ministry of Health states that the hiring of IBL followed the necessary legal procedures and that the signed contracts are in accordance with what the legal opinion recommends.
IBL offered the lowest price and there was an analysis of the costs of previous deliveries, but “there are no prices for comparison”, as they are vaccine doses to be kept and transported between -90ºC and -60ºC, according to the ministry.
An inspection process, still under analysis, investigates failures in the delivery of pediatric vaccines, according to the folder.
The IBL says that the services of distribution and packaging of vaccines are taking place with high safety standards, which were required in the public call with waiver of bidding.
“We are maintaining, during operations, a considerable contingent of professionals of the highest caliber, ready to ensure that any demands are met. All steps under our responsibility were carried out with excellence, without any damage or risk to the quality of vaccines” , says.
According to the company, the integrity of the vaccines was not compromised by loss of temperature.
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Source: Folha
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