Brasilia:

Brazil’s Health Ministry on Thursday signed a contract to purchase 20 million doses of Covaxin, the COVID-19 vaccine made by India’s Bharat Biotech, for delivery between March and May.

The ministry said in a statement that the deal is worth 1.6 billion reais ($290,000), with the first 8 million doses expected to arrive in March.

To speed up the buying of vaccines in Brazil and deal with the second-deadliest coronavirus outbreak in the world, the ministry said it published new rules last week dispensing with the bidding process.

Brazil reported 1,541 new COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, the second highest daily death toll since the pandemic began, taking total fatalities to 251,498.

With 65,998 new cases, the South American country has now registered 10,390,461 cases, the world’s third worst outbreak behind the United States and India.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)