Mexico is Missing COVID-19 Vaccines from COVAX

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that his administration will take legal actions against the Global Access Fund for Vaccines against COVID-19 (COVAX) for the failure to deliver the negotiated vaccines. “We will file a complaint because they have not delivered vaccines to us from the agency that was created at the United Nations (UN), COVAX. They owe us 75 million dollars,” said López Obrador.

According to the UN, Mexico has only received 24.6 million doses from the 51.5 million ordered from COVAX. However, López Obrador stated that Mexico has received a different amount. The news comes as Mexico faces its fifth wave of COVID-19 infections. The country has seen 6.98 million official cases and 329,174 deaths.

López Obrador denounced acts of corruption in high-level international organizations, which mostly affect the poorest countries. “Imagine, giving them money in advance for the vaccines, it will be a year now and we have been looking for an agreement, being tolerant because it is an international organization, but we are not cover-ups,” he said.

Mexico received 18 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last February and 2 million more in May. The president’s demands pertain to COVID-19 vaccines for children. “We have paid in advance for a lot of vaccines from the UN COVAX mechanism and we are requesting that they send us vaccines for children because these vaccines that we have cannot be used if they are not of an authorized brand. We want what they owe us, because we paid for them in advance, that they give it to us in vaccines for children,” said López Obrador. The country started vaccinating children over five years of age against COVID-19 during the last week of June 2022.

One day after this statement, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said that they received a “formal offer” for over 10 million shots that would arrive in September. “We do not yet have a delivery guarantee (but) the news is positive,” said López-Gatell during a morning press conference. 

The COVID-19 pandemic caused the deepest decrease in childhood immunization in 30 years. A report made by the UN and its International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) shows that 25 million children did not receive one or more of all three doses of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (DTP3) through the standard routine of immunization last year, resulting in a 5 percent decrease in immunization rates between 2019 and 2021, as reported by MBN. “This is a red flag for child health. We are witnessing the largest sustained decline in childhood immunization in a generation. The consequences will be measured in lives,” said Catherine Russell, Executive Director, UNICEF.

According to the Ministry of Health and the Mexican Vaccination Observatory, as of December 2021, only three out of every 10 children under five years old had a complete basic vaccination scheme.