AstraZeneca delivered early this Sunday on first batch of vaccines against COVID-19 that Costa Rica hired him directly. Is about 204,000 doses of the AZD1222 vaccine, marketed under the names of Covishield Y Vaxzevria.
The batch of vaccines, the largest that Costa Rica has received Of the 22 that have arrived, they entered the Juan Santamaría International Airport at 1:36 am on Avianca Cargo flight QT4167.
In total, Costa Rica received 378,330 doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in a single week. These doses will be available to be applied starting next week, given the time of transfer to regional freezers and the quality control tests that must be done on the batches.
With the delivery of this lot, Costa Rica reaches 1,973,025 doses of vaccine received, 21.6% of the total contracted to Pfizer, AstraZenea and the COVAX mechanism of the World Health Organization. In the month of May alone, the country has received 715,170 doses of the vaccine, making it the month with the most doses received so far, exceeding by more than 200 thousand doses as of April; and the deliveries that will be made the week that will start this Monday are still missing.
AstraZeneca has faced severe problems distributing its vaccine in Latin America. The company promised 150 million doses for the countries of the region, at cost. The active principle of the vaccine is produced in Argentina, in the mAbxience laboratory, and the packaging is made in Mexico, in the Liomont company.
The international press reported in April that Argentina produced the active ingredients of 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and sent them to Mexico for packaging; however, US protectionist measures prevented Mexico from importing the necessary inputsTherefore, subsequent deliveries of the active ingredient of the vaccine had to be sent to New Mexico, United States.
Despite the setbacks, AstraZeneca keeps its promise to distribute this year in Latin America (excluding Brazil) the 150 million doses initially contemplated.
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