Brazil's Covid-19 vaccination drive to begin Jan end

Brasilia, Jan 14 Brazil's vaccination campaign against the novel coronavirus will begin at the end of January in pandemic hotspot Manaus, capital of northern Amazonas state, Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said.

"We are going to vaccinate in January," Xinhua news agency quoted the Minister as saying to reporters on Wednesday.

While Manaus will be the first city to immunise residents, the vaccine will be distributed simultaneously to every state across the country, he said.

Immunization does not mean "go out to party", Pazuello warned.

"It's not take the vaccine on the 20th and party in the streets on the 22nd."

Pazuello explained that "the vaccine induces the production of antibodies" but "this production of antibodies does not happen the next day. The literature speaks of 30 to 60 days".

This month, Manaus among Brazil's hardest-hit cities, registered a rise in deaths from the disease that forced authorities to set up a cold storage to prevent bodies from being buried in mass graves.

The development comes as Brazil currently accounts for the third largest Covid-19 caseload in the world after the US and India, and the second highest death toll after the US.

As of Thursday morning, the country's overall infection tally and death toll stood at 8,256,536 and 205,964.

( With inputs from IANS )