Luciano Hang and Carlos Wizard meet to discuss acquisition of vaccines against covid-19

03/3/2021

Havan’s owner Luciano Hang and the entrepreneur Carlos Wizard met on Wednesday, 3, at Havan’s headquarters in Brusque (SC), to discuss strategies for purchasing vaccines against Covid-19. The entrepreneurs, who represent a group of business leaders in Brazil, have already expressed to the Ministry of Health the desire to collaborate with the immunization of the population.

The group is currently struggling to acquire vaccines. The legislation dealing with the matter (PL 534/20212) is awaiting presidential sanction and states that the doses purchased by the private sector must be fully donated to the Unified Health System (SUS). Only after the immunization of 100% of the priority group will the private sector be able to buy, distribute and administer the vaccines, but they will still have to donate at least half of the doses to SUS.

The proposal of the entrepreneurs is to act in parallel with the vaccination of the priority group. They aim to immunize workers. “This is a humanitarian cause, we know that Brazil is at a standstill. We, as entrepreneurs, have no commercial or financial interest in this project. Our only wish is to help a greater number of people to have access to the vaccine, so that we can return to our normal and safe lives”, emphasizes Wizard.

Luciano Hang points out that the Brazilian Association of Pharmacy and Drugstore Networks (Abrafarma) has also made itself available to use its vaccination rooms, as has been happening in the United States. “There, the entire structure of pharmacies is being used to vaccinate millions of people. We already have a positive sign that 5,000 Brazilian pharmacies could help with immunization, reaching up to 2 million people per week. We need to speed up the vaccination, the government alone cannot handle it. Otherwise, it will take another year to vaccinate the entire population. It is necessary to accelerate”, he affirms.

During the meeting, Hang and Wizard defined that the next step will be to seek flexibility in the purchase of vaccines and for new immunizers to be authorized in Brazil. “There are several vaccines that are being applied around the world, if it works in other countries, why would it not work here? Since it is the same virus. We need to have access to the maximum number of manufacturers, of course, those who we are already aware of the effectiveness of their vaccines in the rest of the world. This is a moment of unity and a race against time”, concludes Luciano Hang.