Mexico, which is struggling to manage a surge in coronavirus circumstances and deaths, obtained 870,000 vaccine doses on Sunday.
Mexico has obtained a cargo of 870,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine from India, the federal government mentioned, because the nation prepares to prioritise older adults within the subsequent part of its vaccination marketing campaign.
Mexico can also be anticipating shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to renew, with 494,000 doses as a consequence of arrive on Tuesday, Overseas Minister Marcelo Ebrard mentioned throughout a information convention.
Sunday’s cargo quantities to about 42 p.c of the 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by Oxford College, that Mexico plans to import from India, the federal government mentioned.
Mexico and Argentina have an settlement with AstraZeneca to provide the vaccine for the eventual distribution of 250 million doses in Latin America, with monetary assist from the muse of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
Mexico began vaccinating healthcare employees in December however struggled to hit its targets amid international shortages and delays of Pfizer’s vaccine.
The nation has reported almost 1.98 million COVID-19 circumstances and greater than 173,000 coronavirus-related deaths, in keeping with Johns Hopkins College knowledge. That’s the third-highest loss of life toll on the earth after america and Brazil.
Vaccination plan
Mexico will subsequent vaccinate adults above 60, a gaggle representing 12 p.c of Mexico’s almost 130 million individuals, between February and April.
“The vaccines are already obtainable … and they won’t cease arriving in order that the nationwide vaccination plan doesn’t cease,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador mentioned on the information convention within the southwestern state of Oaxaca.
The nation has to this point obtained simply 1,636,350 vaccine doses, in keeping with authorities knowledge, however has agreements for thousands and thousands extra, together with China’s CanSino and the Russian Sputnik V vaccines.
It obtained the lively ingredient for 2 million doses of the CanSino vaccine on Thursday.
Moreover, Mexico has secured sufficient vaccines to cowl 20 p.c of its inhabitants by means of the worldwide COVAX programme, which goals to make sure growing nations have entry to vaccines, although shipments have but to start.
Mexico’s vaccine roll-out started on December 23, when it turned the primary nation in Latin America to obtain a cargo of doses.
However the marketing campaign has since stalled amid mismanagement and a world scarcity in vaccine manufacturing.
Many observers have put the blame for the sluggish roll-out squarely on Lopez Obrador, who, even after contracting COVID-19 himself, mentioned he would nonetheless not put on a masks in public.
Analysts mentioned the president’s unwillingness to mannequin good behaviour to forestall the potential unfold of the virus has been indicative of his downplaying the specter of the virus and his wider mishandling of a pandemic.
Lopez Obrador has resisted shutting the nation’s borders or imposing nationwide lockdowns.