Mexico makes progress on vaccination by buying doses from Chinese drugmaker Sinovac
Mexico will receive ten million doses of vaccine from Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac. Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard on Tuesday morning announced the agreement with China to send 10 million doses between this month and May and another 10 million between May and June.
A week ago, US President Joe Biden ruled out sharing vaccines with the neighbouring country in the short term. The Biden administration rejected President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's request for the US to share its vaccines, saying the immediate priority is to vaccinate Americans.
However, Mexico expects to receive vaccines from the United States when 100 million Americans are vaccinated in 100 days. The deadline to meet this goal is the end of April.
"As a result of a process personally led by the president of the Republic, we have received confirmation that we will have an expansion of up to 22 million doses," Ebrard said during López Obrador's regular press conference.
Ebrard reported that the pharmaceutical company Sinopharm will present the permit for its vaccine to the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris) in the next few days. He added that once it has the green light, the purchase of 12 million doses will be concentrated between March and June. He mentioned that "we are going to add 10 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, which as you know is being applied in Mexico, and the Sinopharm vaccine, which is already authorised in several countries around the world".
In addition, three million doses of vaccine from China's CanSino Biologics Inc will arrive in Mexico on Wednesday and will be sent to Querétaro. Separately, authorities reported the arrival of four more shipments of COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. Guadalajara will receive 108,225, Monterrey 72,150, Mexico City 275,925 and Queretaro 144,300.
"Three million doses of CansinoBio are about to leave for CDMX Airport. They will arrive tomorrow and will be transferred to Querétaro to be packaged. This is a single-dose vaccine and was tested by 15,000 Mexican volunteers with very good results. Its application will begin in a few days," Ebrard said in a tweet.
In total, 5,292,375 vaccines will arrive in Mexico to deal with COVID-19 from Sinovac, Sinopharm, Pfizer/BioNTech, among others. Next Wednesday, 200,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccine are scheduled to arrive.
Mexico has 7,407 new cases and a daily average of 5,813 and 192,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The country is also in the midst of a health crisis that has intensified the economic crisis.
Latin America Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra
