Sao Paulo starts using Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

São Paulo started using Pfizer's Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday throughout the city.

The state capital received 135,720 doses of the North American pharmaceutical, the third vaccine to be used in the country after CoronaVac and AstraZeneca/Oxford.

Some city health centers had long cues as a new age group also started being vaccinated on Thursday.

Although most people just wanted to get vaccinated regardless of which manufacturer, some worried about which vaccines countries will accept as reliable.

"In the matter of efficiency, any of them (vaccine), any of the obviously. My only concern is the fact if other countries will accept other vaccines besides the Pfizer," said Cecília Amaro, who plans to visit her son who lives abroad.

The first batch of 1 million doses arrived in Brazil on April 29th. 629 thousand more doses arrived on Wednesday, the second batch of a 100 million total doses.

On Thursday morning, São Paulo Governor João Dória, alongside Dimas Covas, Butantan Institute Director, attended the delivery of 1 million CoronaVac doses from Butantan Institute to the Ministry of Health.

Covas announced that the Institute had to pause the vaccine production because of delays in the vaccine's raw material delivery from China.