Brazil will not buy China's Sinovac vaccine, says President Jair Bolsonaro

While the world is hoping for a COVID-19 vaccine to be released soon, Brazil's PresidentJair Bolsonaro has announced that his government will not be buying Chinese vaccine.

He took to social media to make this statement, saying that Brazil will not buyChina's Sinovac vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

"For sure, we will not buy the Chinese vaccine," Bolsonaro said on social media, responding to a supporter who urged him not to buy the vaccine. The president said the issue would be clarified later in the day.

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The statement has come after theHealth Minister Eduardo Pazuello, on Tuesday, said that the Brazil government will be buying Sinovac's vaccination to include it in theimmunization program. He also added that vaccines developed byAstraZeneca and Oxford University will also be used by the state.

Bolsonaro's government has decided to buy the UK vaccine and then produce it as its biomedical research centre FioCruz in Rio de Janeiro.

Sao Paulo state biomedical research centre, the Butantan Institute, is testing the Sinovac vaccine, and Governor João Doria said he hopes to have health regulator approval by the end of the year to start vaccinating people in January.

As of now, the Chinese vaccine has been labelled safe by trials conducted on 9,000 volunteers. These arethe first set of results of Sinovac's global Phase 3 trials, which are also being conducted in Turkey and Indonesia.

(With inputs from Reuters)