Mexico approves AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine against Covid-19

Mexico granted this Monday the emergency authorization for the vaccine against Covid-19 developed by the laboratory AstraZeneca and the Oxford Universitythe government announced.

The Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) “authorized the AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use against the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” Hugo López-Gatell, Undersecretary of Health and spokesman for the government’s strategy against the new coronavirus, said on Twitter.

The Latin American country undertook on December 24 the vaccination of its health personnel with the biological one manufactured by the American-German pharmaceutical duo Pfizer BioNTech.

Some 30,000 health sector workers, about a quarter of what was expected in the first stage, had been inoculated as of Sunday, according to the government.

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has said that until the first half of January it is expected to vaccinate between 700,000 and 750,000 health workers at the forefront of the pandemic.

Mexico participates in an agreement with the Foundation of the Mexican magnate Carlos Slim, Astrazeneca and the University of Oxford for the production of the biological in their territory and Argentina, as well as its non-profit distribution in Latin America, except Brazil.

The agreement signed by Mexico includes the acquisition of 77.4 million of the vaccine from AstraZeneca / Oxford.

The government of Mexico has signed agreements for 1.659 million dollars with different laboratories to buy up to 200 million doses that will allow to immunize, free of charge, up to 116 million Mexicans between 2020 and 2021, according to the Secretary of Finance.

Mexico, of 128 million inhabitants, is the fourth most mourning country in absolute numbers due to the new coronavirus with 127,757 deaths and 1.4 million infected, according to official figures reported until this Monday.