Brasilia: In the middle of the probe, the allegations of irregularities against President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian health minister has announced that the country will suspend the USD 324 million contract to buy 20 million doses of Covaxin Bharat Biotech.
Overcoming a press conference on Tuesday with Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga, Head of the Federal Comtroller General (CGU) Wagner Rosario, said that the agency would investigate the vaccine purchase process.
“We suspend the agreement as a simple precautionary measure, because there are complaints that cannot be explained properly by the complainants, so we opened an investigation earlier last week,” Rosario said, as quoted by CNN Brazil.
“We have included a reinforced team for verification.
We hope to be very fast in this process, and we hope that no more than 10 days we will have answers to this analysis.” Brazilian Health Minister Queiroga said his service would conduct an administrative investigation to verify all aspects of the problem being raised.
“As soon as we have more concrete data, we will communicate.” The contract for the acquisition of the Covaxin vaccine was signed by both parties in February to import 20 million vaccine doses by Bharat Biotech.
According to CNN, vaccine doses have never been sent to Brazil, as the National Health Supervisory Agency (Anvisa) denied import demand for vaccines.
Negotiations between the Bolsonaro Government and require drugs – Brazilian pharmaceutical companies that mediate agreements – have been under the scanner.
When things stand, the contract is being examined by the Senate panel of a country that investigates the handling of government pandemics.
Brazilian President Bolsularo was accused of ignoring possible corruption in the agreement to buy the Coronavirus vaccine.
Bolsonaro has senate the Senate Committee investigating the Covid-19 government response, saying that it aims to undermine his government.