MEXICO CITY (Process).– 2023 ends and Mexico still does not have its Patria vaccine. Despite the established deadlines and optimistic statements from the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt), the only injection against covid-19 developed by Mexico is still not produced, so it will not be administered as a booster dose this year, as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised it last October.
After more than three years of development, an investment of 937 million pesos, including 422 million pesos from Conahcyt, and various delays in deliveries, the vaccine – which mixes a technology from the Icahn School of Medicine at Monte Sinai, in New York, and a protein manufactured by the University of Austin, in Texas – is not yet administered in national vaccination campaigns.
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The Avi-Mex veterinary laboratory, which signed agreements with the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (Amexcid) and with Conahcyt in October 2020 to produce the Mexican vaccine, refuses to provide information on the status of production and the delivery times, under the argument that they are confidential data.
“At the moment we are not granting or answering questions until the launch of the vaccine, which will be in a few weeks, because the laboratory is focused on delivering the doses within the established time,” the KPR agency responded to Proceso. , which carries the communication of Avi-Mex.
Alvarez-Buylla. Happy announcements. Photo: Germán Canseco
In the vaccination campaign against influenza and covid-19, which began on October 16, the Mexican authorities apply booster doses with Abdala and Sputnik, developed by the governments of Cuba and Russia, respectively. And on December 7, the Federal Commission for the Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris) gave the green light to the sale in pharmacies of vaccines developed by the Pfizer and Moderna laboratories.
The official optimism
The story of Patria began on October 9, 2020, when the company Avi-Mex approached Amexcid and Conahcyt to present its vaccine project, which would combine two patents acquired in the United States: the recombinant vector technology of the Newcastle disease (rNDV), developed by the Icahn school – which they already used to manufacture veterinary vaccines – and the HexaPro protein, from the University of Austin.
The Foreign Ministry then led by Marcelo Ebrard and Conahcyt gave the green light to the project, and entered into agreements with Avi-Mex to unlock nearly 150 million pesos to produce the vaccine and install two new plants. The Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER) joined the plan.
In April 2021, while the first vaccination campaign against covid-19 began, with doses from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Sputnik V, Sinovac and CanSino, María Elena Álvarez-Buylla Roces, head of Conahcyt, announced at the president’s morning conference López Obrador that clinical studies of the Patria vaccine had started, and that it could be ready to be applied at the end of that year.
Vaccination against covid. All doses, except the Mexican one. Photo: Benjamín Flores
However, more than two years have passed since the announcement, and the vaccine has still not been administered, despite the fact that last May Álvarez-Buylla Roces herself boasted to the president that “We already have a Homeland!” The vaccine successfully passed clinical phase 1 and 2 studies, and concluded the phase to measure its effects as a booster dose, although it does not yet have studies that show its results.
2023-12-20 11:00:00
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