Brasilia, Mar 22 (IANS): The Brazilian government announced that it would accelerate the Covid-19 immunisation process, with release for immediate application of all vaccines stored in the municipalities.

"We are going to double applications this week, immunizing a large number of the Brazilian population," Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said in a statement on Sunday.

According to the statement, the decision was made given the anticipated acceleration in vaccine production by the Butantan Institute of Sao Paulo and Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), reports Xinhua news agency.

The Butantan Institute imported and developed the CoronaVac vaccine from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, while Fiocruz produced the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine with imported supplies.

Since January 17 when the vaccination campaign began, the states and municipalities have had to reserve half of the doses received for second doses.

The Ministry of Health received 5 million doses of vaccines this weekend.

Among them, 3.9 million CoronaVac doses were from the Butantan Institute, and 1,051,750 doses were manufactured by Fiocruz.

In Brazil, more than 11.7 million people have received the first doses, while 4.1 million have been fully vaccinated.

Brazil has so far registered a total of 11,998,223 confirmed coronavirus cases and 294,042 fatalities.

The two tallies account for the second highest in the world after the US.