Less Than 1 Percent Vaccinated in Mexico

Mexico has vaccinated 1.57 million out of its 126 million inhabitants, according to Forbes Mexico. This puts the percentage of vaccinated citizens at less than 1 percent.

Last week, Mexico was named as one of the countries with the highest mortality rates due to COVID-19 in the world by El País, with around 175,986 reported deaths. However, COVID-19 deaths in the country could be closer to 300,000, claims a study by medRxiv, a health sciences server supported by Yale University, titled “The World Mortality Dataset: Tracking excess mortality across countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.” One of the reasons behind the high number of deaths could be the high percentage of people with cardiovascular diseases and other conditions that make them more susceptible to COVID-19 symptoms, claims the study. Mexico is one of the countries that has suffered the most in terms of COVID-19 deaths and GDP impact, reports El País.

Last Saturday, Mexico received a shipment of 200,000 vaccines against COVID-19 from Chinese pharmaceutical Sinovac Biotech, announced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Twitter. The vaccines were sent to Ecatepec, State of Mexico, where the government would start vaccinating elders. According to Martha Delgado, Deputy Minister of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico has received a total of 2.33 million vaccines, of which 1.26 million come from Pfizer, 870,000 from AstraZeneca and 200,000 from Sinovac, she tweeted.

Mexico is supposed to receive 10 million more vaccines in the next few weeks, informed Marcelo Ebrard, Minister of Foreign Affairs. If everything goes according to plan, the country will also receive 1 million by the end of the month and 3 million in March, April and May, reports Forbes Mexico. On Monday, Feb. 22, another 200,000-dose shipment of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine was scheduled to arrive, as part of a 24 million dose agreement with the Russian manufacturer, according to CNN.

Mexican universities are also working to manufacture a Mexican vaccine. Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, for example, is developing QUiVAX, while Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo’s vaccine candidate is currently in the second phase of development and is planned to be ready in October, according to El Heraldo de México.