Sidelining experts, Brazil bungled its immunisation plans

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Like many Brazilian public health experts, Dr Regina Flauzino spent most of 2020 watching with horror as Covid-19 devastated Brazil. When the opportunity to join the government’s vaccination effort came, she was thrilled: She would be able to share her decades of on-the-ground experience.

But her excitement quickly faded. Flauzino, an epidemiologist who worked on Brazilian vaccine campaigns for 20 years, became frustrated with what she described as a rushed, chaotic process.

The government has yet to approve a single vaccine, and health ministry officials have ignored outside experts’ advice. Shortly after the government presented its vaccination plan, more than a quarter of the roughly 140 experts involved demanded their names be excised.

“We weren’t listened to,” Flauzino told The Associated Press. The plan’s creation “was postponed for too long and now it’s being done in a rush”.

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