Minister’s administration Marcelo Quiroga (Health) hired a company with no experience in transporting vaccines in the public service to carry out warehousing and logistics for covid-19 vaccinations for children.
as Delivery of the first pediatric vaccine from Pfizer It was marked by problems in several areas of the country over the weekend, when the vaccination of children began. The audience is from 5 to 11 years old.
Contracts with IBL (Intermodal Brasil Logística), amounting to R$62.2 million, were signed in December without a bidding process.
Countries such as Santa Catarina, Pernambuco, Parana and Paraíba indicated that the forts arrived in inappropriate storage and transportation conditions.
In Joao Pessoa, for example, the company was not present on Saturday (15) at the local airport to receive, pack and transport the doses to the place designated by the state government.
Contracts signed with IBL are for 12 months, with permission to extend for up to five years, despite the expedited nature of the bid waiver.
The company was chosen by the Ministry of Health to distribute children’s vaccinations to the states. The contract was concluded despite the existence of a contract in progress, the time of conducting a new tender and the interests of logistics companies in dispute.
In addition, the ministry gave the company 60 days to make the necessary adjustments to provide the service. IBL stated that it did not use the deadline.
The company mentioned to Leaf, in a note, a single experience in transporting vaccines, to a private laboratory, she said. “Due to compliance requirements, we have declined to nominate such a company.”
According to the company, deliveries were supposed to take place between 2015 and 2018. IBL claimed to have delivered 100% of the goods to the first order of the government contract on time and at the required temperature.
The department, in turn, stated, in a note also, that there was no harm in any children’s vaccine delivered to states and the Federal District. The folder will investigate any malfunctions, according to the note.
In this pandemic, IBL provided one service to the federal government ahead of vaccine decades, according to the Federation’s Covid-19 Procurement Committee: collecting, separating and delivering 100,000 masks to EBSERH (Empresa Brasileira de Serviços Hospitalares), the government agency that takes care of federal university hospitals. The value of this contract amounted to 16 thousand Brazilian riyals.
The specialty of the IBL, subject to contracts concluded with the federal government, is the storage of goods seized by federal revenue in customs centers.
For services such as revenue, the company has already received R$23.1 million from the union, of which R$17.9 million (77.5%) has been paid to the government. Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
The logistics company also signed a contract with Inca (National Cancer Institute) in 2020, in the amount of R$2.3 million, to store and transport “educational and technical products and materials”.
The TCU (Consultation of Reviewers) has opened a process to investigate alleged irregularities in contracting with IBL without bidding for the transfer of vaccines. In December, the court requested clarifications from the DLOG (Department of Health Logistics) of the Ministry of Health.
State health departments have also expressed concern about the new contract for distributing children’s vaccines due to the need for special storage and transportation conditions, at special temperatures.
The delivery of Pfizer’s vaccines has begun in the past two days. Local governments felt the difference in changing the company and recorded a series of failures, such as packaging conditions and even a lack of teams from the designated company to receive the immunizations.
Despite problems in Santa Catarina, Pernambuco, Parana and Paraíba, there are no missing vaccine records, for now, but state administrators are concerned that new shipments of doses are due this week.
In Joao Pessoa, the company was not present at the local airport to receive, package and transport doses to the location indicated by the state government.
The Secretary of State for Health, Geraldo Antonio de Medeiros, stated that a major stalemate had been created, as the airline was not allowed to issue doses to agents other than the IBL Logística team.
“When the vaccines arrived, the airline wasn’t at the airport to be able to quickly transfer them to the state health department’s network. We made our vehicles available, but the airline didn’t deliver them,” the minister said. Leaf.
We took the company phone [de logística], but they said there was no expectation. So it was necessary to embrace the pressure and say responsibility for mobilizing the vaccines, otherwise those vaccines may be lost. This is where they got.”
According to the minister, the problems were repeated in other states. “In almost every state there has been [problemas]. Medeiros said that there was this outsourcing of a new company, an amateur company, that had no experience in transporting vaccines, so there was the problem of vaccines almost all over Brazil.”
In Santa Catarina, there were complaints about the conditions in which vaccines were delivered and also about errors in flight schedules.
O Globo newspaper, Saturday, showed that there were failures in distributing vaccines after contracting with IBL.
When questioned by TCU, the owner of the DLOG, General Ridauto Lúcio Fernandes, told the court last month that IBL would be the contracting company. On the same day, he confirmed that he had given up the bid. The law was published in the DOU (Diário Oficial da União) the next day.
Also, contracts were signed on the 22nd, with a value of 28.1 million Brazilian riyals for storing the Pfizer vaccine, and others worth 34.1 million Brazilian riyals for transportation, while maintaining the immunization device at -90 degrees Celsius to -60 degrees Celsius.
Major General Redotto signed the contracts by the Ministry of Health, and the extracts were published in the DOU on the penultimate thirtieth day of the year.
At that moment, Quiroga and Bolsonaro worked to postpone the vaccination of children, despite Permission from Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) granted on December 16.
The legal basis for giving up the bid was a March 2021 law that provides for exceptional measures to procure vaccines, supplies and logistics in the event of a pandemic, while declaring a public health emergency continues.
In the case of contracts with IBL, one of the problems pointed out by health technicians and sector representatives is that the ministry has attached primary importance to the possibility of depreciation during the selection process, leaving technical issues in the background.
Experienced firms made bids that proved uncompetitive in value terms.
VTCLog continues to provide other vaccines against Covid-19. The company has become the target of Covid CPI In the Senate on suspicion of corruption. About 170 million doses have already been delivered to the states by the company.
the CPI’s final report suggested indicting VTCLog itself and some of its managers. The company continues to distribute other vaccines contracted by the federal government.
The Ministry of Health said that there was no damage to the distributed vaccines and that the doses were sent in record time.
The ministry stated that contracting with IBL was done through a selection process, with the participation of many consolidated companies in the sector, including VTCLog.
IBL stated that vaccine distribution and packaging services are performed to high security standards, which were required in the public call with a bid waivers.
“We maintain, during operations, a large group of professionals at the highest level, ready to ensure that any demands are met. All steps under our responsibility have been carried out with distinction, without any damage or risk to the quality of the vaccines,” he said.
According to the company, the safety of the vaccines was not affected by the loss of temperature.
“IBL is operating with state-of-the-art equipment to ensure compliance with the requirements. The company has records of all shipments that have been operated to date, without any incidents,” he said in a statement.
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