Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro shoots down plan to buy coronavirus vaccine from China’s Sinovac
- President says Brazilians ‘will not be anyone’s guinea pig’ – just a day after his health minister announced deal to buy millions of doses of CoronaVac
- Bolsonaro had come under pressure from hardline supporters to ban what one called the ‘Chinese dictatorship’s vaccine’
“The Brazilian people will not be anyone’s guinea pig … That is why I have decided not to purchase this vaccine,” the far-right leader wrote on Facebook.
Bolsonaro made the post after coming under pressure from hardline supporters to ban what one called the “Chinese dictatorship’s vaccine”: CoronaVac, developed by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac.
Bolsonaro later told journalists he had cancelled a deal announced on Monday by Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello to purchase 46 million doses of CoronaVac, to be administered starting in January.
CoronaVac has been caught up in a messy political battle in Brazil.
Bolsonaro, whose government has strained ties with China, has derided it as the vaccine “from that other country”, pushing instead to acquire another vaccine being developed by Oxford University in Britain.