The American company Moderna donated 2.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Mexico on Saturday, while the official death toll in the country from the pandemic exceeds 300,000.
Mexico this week surpassed 300,000 confirmed deaths from the coronavirus, but so few tests are carried out in the country that a government review of death certificates puts the true figure at almost 460,000.
Mexican authorities celebrated the arrival of the shipment at the Toluca airport, west of Mexico City, and said the vaccines will be used to inoculate teaching staff.
Teachers in Mexico were the second sector to be vaccinated at the beginning of last year, only after health personnel.
In April and May, more than 2.7 million teachers were vaccinated for the first time. But most of them received the single-dose Chinese Cansino vaccine, the efficacy of which appears to decrease over time.
Mexico has already obtained more than 200 million doses of vaccines, and has tried to reopen schools in person at all levels.
The Secretary of Education, Delfina Gómez, said that “we are grateful to receive this donation of the vaccine that will undoubtedly help more children and young people in Mexico to be safely and confidently in the classroom.”
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