Mexico's Vaccine Agreements: An Overview

Minister of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard introduced the Diplomatic Management Platform this morning, which explains Mexico’s COVID-19 vaccine contracts. During the presentation, Ebrard highlighted that "Mexico is one of the first five countries in the world that made all operations and procedures followed to obtain COVID-19 vaccines transparent."

The platform explains that Mexico has mainly received doses from Pfizer, followed by Sinovac and AstraZeneca. While Pfizer has sent most doses, it is Mexico’s fourth largest contract. Its largest contract is with AstraZeneca for 77.4 million doses that will cover 38.7 million people. COVAX, a mechanism to equally distribute the vaccine across developed and developing countries, is the second contract in the list. With COVAX, Mexico signed for 51.1 million doses that will immunize 25.75 million people. On third place is CanSino Biologics, the single-dose vaccine that Mexico began distributing to all educational staff this month, with hopes to reopen schools. From CanSino, Mexico expects a total of 35 million doses that will cover 35 million people. Next on the list is Pfizer with 34.40 million doses for 17.2 million people, followed by Sputnik V with 24 million doses for 12 million people and Sinovac with 20 million doses for 10 million people. Additionally, Mexico has a contract for 2.03 million doses with AstraZeneca’s Serum Institute. In total, Mexico is securing 243.93 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, enough for 139.66 million people out of a population of 126 million.

Mexico has also begun packaging vaccines manufactured in Argentina. This process is carried out by Mexican company Liomont Laboratories, which is expected to pack around 4-6 batches. To date, Liomont has already delivered 3.40 million spread in batches packages, which are being reviewed by AstraZeneca prior to their distribution in Latin America. Additionally, the country will also package 6.02 million CanSino and 25.78 million AstraZeneca doses.

To date, Mexico has applied 26.66 million doses from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, CanSino and Sputnik. The country now has 11.7 million fully immunized citizens, while 6.3 million are waiting for the second dose.

The federal government initially planned to complete vaccination schemes for health professionals and people over 60 years old by the end of March, but unexpected events have pushed the end of this vaccination scheme to May. Moreover, health professionals have not been fully vaccinated, as private hospitals and clinics were not labeled as priorities.

Mexico will also be included in the third phase of the clinical trials for Sanofi and GSK’s COVID-19 vaccine, announced today Fernando Sampaio, Country Lead and General Manager of Sanofi Mexico.