The governor of São Paulo, Rodrigo Garcia, announced on last Thursday that the Butantan Institute, the Brazilian supplier of the vaccine, will import eight thousand liters of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) from China to produce 10 million doses of the CoronaVac vaccine against COVID-19 for children aged 3 to 4 years old. The vaccine was developed by the institute in partnership with the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac.

It is expected that the production of the new vaccines will be ready in August. The 10 million doses will be enough for the first dosage of the vaccine for all Brazilian children between the ages of 3 and 4.

Since January 2021, Coronavac has been authorized for emergency use in the adult population of Brazil. The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) of Brazil authorized, on 13th of July, the emergency use of the Coronavac vaccine against COVID-19 in children ages 3 to 5 in Brazil.