Dimas Covas cites political difficulties when receiving the 2021 Men of the Year award in Science: ‘Vencemos’ – GQ

Honored in the science category for the eleventh edition of Men of the Year Dimas Caves, the current director of Putantan Institute, responsible for the manufacture of the Coronavac vaccine, the first immunizing agent to be applied in Brazil to combat COVID-19.

at the event for GQ Brazil, which takes place Friday night (3) at the Copacabana Palace Hotel, in Rio de Janeiro, Covas took the stage to receive the award directly from the actor’s hands. Luciano Ambassadordisease survivor. In his speech, the President of Bhutantan recalled the beginning of the epidemic and the difficulties it faced.

“In January 2020, not much was known about the virus, science rushed to understand it and we are still trying to understand it. Last year, we were in Bhutantan sure that vaccines would be necessary. We knew about the challenge, and we looked for partnerships. Everyone to bring the vaccine to Our country. Political difficulties arose as well, but we won.”

“We gather here because we are somehow vaccinated and protected”, highlighted by Dimas Covas, who divides the category with Mauricio Zuma, director of the Bio-Manguinhos Institute of Technology in Immunobiology, a unit of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fucruz).

Importance of Coronavac and Dimas Covas

Brazilian physician, researcher and professor, Dimas Tado Covas, has been the Director of the Putantan Institute since 2017. Prior to that, he was the winner of the Jabote Prize in 2007, Professor of Medicine from the University of São Paulo and also one of the founders of the Brazilian School of Hematology, among other important attributes .

Covas was at the forefront of the development of the immunizing agent, which began at the beginning of the epidemic in March 2020, but signed with the pharmaceutical company Sinovac in June of the same year.

Dimas Covas is 65 and a native of Patataes, a city located within the state of São Paulo, he is currently one of the major names in health in the country. In January of this year, the butantan vaccine with Sinovac began to be applied to the Brazilian population, which contributed to the advancement of immunization.