The Butantan Institute is in talks with South American countries to export doses of the Coronavac vaccine, reported the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. While some countries, like Chile, are buying doses directly from the Chinese Sinovac laboratory, others are trying to buy from the Brazilian institute.

At a press conference on Friday 29, the Butantan’s director Dimas Covas said that the Sinovac laboratory is analyzing the release of 500,000 doses to neighboring countries, excluding Uruguay and Colombia, which are also negotiating directly with Sinovac, but that no export contracts have been signed yet.

Covas also said that doses to neighboring countries are additional doses from China and that this export will not affect vaccination in Brazil.

According to the Folha de S.Paulo report, the conversation with Argentina is the most advanced; the country has already started vaccinating health workers with the Russian Sputnik V. Paraguay, which plans to start vaccination in February, would be negotiating 2 million doses of Coronavac from Butantan.