Covid: Argentina sends Mexico to produce AstraZeneca vaccine

Mexico hopes to receive from Argentina the active ingredient necessary for the development of doses of the vaccine against Covid-19 developed by the British laboratory AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, announced Monday a member of the Mexican government.

“This Wednesday, we are pleased to receive the first of these bulk shipments, for approximately one million doses,” Under Secretary of Health Hugo Lopez-Gatell said at a press conference.

This quantity is lower than that mentioned shortly before on Twitter by the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard, who had spoken of a shipment allowing the development of six million doses.

Thanks to this shipment, the finalization in Mexico of this vaccine will be possible, assured Mr. Ebrard.

The Mexican health regulator, Cofepris, on January 4 authorized the use of this vaccine, which should be available from March, depending on the production capacities of the manufacturers.

Its “active ingredient” is produced in Argentina by the bio-pharmacy firm mAbxience before being shipped to Mexico where the vaccine will be produced by the Liomont laboratory.

The two laboratories will be able to produce around 250 million doses to meet demand in Latin America, according to the Mexican government.

Mexico has already placed an order with AstraZeneca to acquire 77.4 million doses. He also made deals to acquire other vaccines, including the Russian Sputnik V.

These preparations to develop the Astrazeneca / Oxford vaccine come as the Mexican government announced a reduction in the supply of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to which it had been entitled, in line with the UN’s request for rich countries to share. with the poorest countries the additional doses they had purchased.

Mexico, with 128 million inhabitants, is the fourth most affected country in the world in terms of the death toll from the pandemic, with 140,704 deaths, according to the latest data collected by AFP from official figures .

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