RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil, a nation proud of its role as a regional leader in science, technology and medicine, finds itself falling behind its neighbors in the global race for immunization against a pandemic that has already killed nearly 200,000 of its people.Latin America’s largest nation, long heralded for its domestic vaccine development programs, appears to be at least three or four weeks away from launching any formal immunization campaign against COVID-19.
In contrast, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica and other countries in the region have already begun giving shots to their populations.The Brazilian government has not approved a single vaccine and has stumbled in attempts to acquire even syringes and needles for an immunization.