Mexico’s Progress Against COVID-19

Almost 200 million vaccines are expected to arrive in Mexico in 2021, tweeted yesterday Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, General Coordinator of Social Communication of the Presidency. “In 2021, 34 million Pfizer vaccines will arrive, 77.4 million from Astra Zeneca, 35 million from CanSino, 51.5 million from Covax, as well as both the Russian and the German vaccine,” read the General Coordinator’s tweet. The government of Mexico will sign an agreement with CanSino, a Chinese pharmaceutical, in January 2021, said Andrés Manuel López Obrador in his daily morning conference, reported Milenio. CanSino’s vaccine would also arrive in January if the agreement is signed.

El @GobiernoMX ha firmado acuerdos para asegurar millones de vacunas vs el COVID-19 a todos los mexicanos. En 2021 llegarán 34 millones de vacunas de Pfizer; 77.4 millones de Astra Zeneca; 35 millones de Cansino; 51.5 millones de Covax. Además se busca traer la rusa y la alemana. pic.twitter.com/KrQ4wDhcFe

— Jesús Ramírez Cuevas (@JesusRCuevas) December 27, 2020

Last week, a Mexican nurse was the first person to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in Latina America with Mexico’s first batch of Pfizer’s vaccine, which consisted of 3,000 doses, reported El Pais. The vaccine has to be reapplied 21 days later for proper immunization.

Two days ago, the second and third batch of COVID-19 vaccines arrived in both Mexico City and Monterrey with 42,900 doses (34,125 for Mexico City and 8,775 for Monterrey), reported Entrepreneur. “We will continue throughout the year to work extensively for the well-being and health of all Mexicans,” highlighted Miriam Esther Veras Godoy,
Director of the National Center for Child and Adolescent Health. However, she did tell Entrepreneur that the vaccination process will follow several phases, due to the way batches are being delivered and how vaccines ought to be produced and handled. Zoé Robledo, Director of IMSS, highlighted 1.4 million vaccines are expected to arrive before Jan. 31, 2021.

Yesterday, Andrés Manuel López Obrador mentioned that no private company has asked the federal government to be able to purchase or import COVID-19 vaccines. “There has been a lot of speculation but nobody has asked the Mexican government, not a single Mexican company, nobody has asked for permission to import vaccines. We do not know of any company that is making any arrangements to purchase vaccines,” he announced, according to El Economista. He did, however, mention that he would only be opposed to the acquisition of vaccines from a private company if the doses they receive are from the many doses the Mexican government had already acquired. “If they are given to a particular private company, we would not allow that, we would denounce it, but it is not the case,” he said. The plan remains to vaccinate first medical staff in hospitals from the private and public sector and then move on to the elderly, reported El Economista.