The Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico ordered this Thursday the Federal Ministry of Health to reveal the number of vaccines against covid-19, including the Cuban Abdala, which “expired” before its application, as well as its manufacturer and its batch of origin. In a announcementthe Court stressed that this information “does not put national security at risk” or the fight against the pandemic, as the Government argued for not disclosing the data.
14 intervene learned that at least 335,244 doses manufactured on the island expired in August and that they had been distributed in the states of Coahuila, Chihuahua, Jalisco, Puebla and Oaxaca. Of these, 70,000 were authorized in Coahuila to be applied as support doses against the virus for another 18 months.
The Government of Mexico has also defined as “classified”, for five years, all the information related to the hiring of Cuban specialists to the Island, as well as the agreements and payments made for the shipment of 9,000,000 doses of the Abdala vaccine. The Legal Department blocked the information, alleging that providing details about the confidentiality agreement process could be exploited by criminal groups.
The nurse specialist in intensive care Vannesa Ordoñez, who denounced the use of expired Cuban doses in Coahuila, specified to 14 intervene that in the state of Zacatecas 400 doses of the US Pfizer vaccine, expired since November 2022, were injected into children who attended the Francisco Esparza health center.
“There is concern among health personnel because this was announced just after Cofepris (the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks) authorized the use of expired Cuban doses in Coahuila. The Zacatecas case was due to an anonymous complaint, that we were able to verify,” he explains. Ordoñez warned that “children are a vulnerable sector and each medication that is supplied to them must be transparent, and inform the parents, who are the ones who give consent.”
Last January, expired Pfizer doses were also applied under the argument that it could be supplied up to 12 months after the expiration date, October 31, 2022, as indicated on the bottle. On that occasion, the authorities of the state of Guerrero assured that “there was no problem” and that the drugs “served and could be supplied until February” of 2023.
In September of last year, it was shown that the Government of Mexico had disposed of 5,041,050 doses of anti-covid vaccines, of which 3,409,440 were from the British AstraZeneca vaccine and 1,631,610 from the Russian Sputnik, which were in a warehouse of the Birmex company and another part in the National Institute of Virology.
Mexico has acquired anti-covid vaccines from brands from various countries, such as Pfizer, Cansino, Covax, Sputnik-V, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Moderna and Abdala. According to official figures, of 129 million Mexicans, only 90% of the country’s population has been immunized.
Despite the fact that the Abdala vaccine has been rejected by the population because it does not have the endorsement of the World Health Organization (WHO), Cofepris, in charge of the sanitary control of medicines, authorized the use of the Sovereign 02 and Sovereign doses. PI, manufactured on the Island.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14 intervene He is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for accompanying us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our newspaper. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
