Brazilian state governors scrambling to secure COVID-19 vaccines say they will bypass President Jair Bolsonaro's government and buy shots directly because of delays in the federal inoculation program.
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Half of Brazil's 26 governors visited pharmaceutical company Uniao Quimica in Brasilia, which will produce Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, on Tuesday.
Sao Paulo's government said it will buy 20 million doses.
Sputnik V would have to be authorised for emergency use by Brazil's health regulator Anvisa before the doses can be used.
Piaui Governor Wellington Dias said they hope Anvisa can authorise emergency use by next week but Uniao Quimica's top executive said in an interview the company is still filing paperwork.
The move comes as Brazil on Tuesday posted a single-day record 1641 COVID-19 deaths.
That surpassed the previous high of 1595 in July 2020, as Brazil faces a new peak in coronavirus cases and the hospital system is pushed to the brink of collapse.
More than 257,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Brazil in total.
Overburdened hospital wards are also frustrated with the Bolsonaro administration's failure to secure timely supplies of vaccines.
Little more than 3 per cent of the country's 210 million people have been vaccinated.
Uniao Quimica, a private company that produces human and animal medicines, plans to start producing the Russian vaccine in April in a transfer of technology from Moscow's Gamaleya Institute that includes local production of the shot's active ingredients.
Company Chief Executive Fernando Marques said he expects to make 90 million Sputnik V doses this year but how many will be available to Brazilian states or exported to neighboring countries will depend on the volume demanded by his company's priority customer, the federal government.
"We will start producing in April and only then will we be able to see what surplus we can supply," he said.
So far, Brazil has relied on limited supplies of the Chinese vaccine Coronavac, made by Sinovac, and AstraZeneca Plc's vaccine developed with Oxford University.
Joao Doria, governor of Sao Paulo - the country's most populous state - said this week his government would bypass the federal health ministry if it failed to supply the needed vaccines.
On Tuesday, he told reporters his state will go ahead and buy 20 million doses of the Russian vaccine.
Australian Associated Press
