AstraZeneca vaccines to start arriving in Argentina following US decision

A decision by President Joe Biden that unblocked the export from the United States to Mexico of filters required for vaccine production and packaging unblocked the arrival of vaccines Oxford AstraZeneca in Argentina.

In two weeks, they will be ready to be sent to Buenos Aires. 900,000 doses which were manufactured in the factory of MABxience in Garín, province of Buenos Aires, fractionated and conditioned in the laboratory Albany Molecular Research Inc. (AMRI) of Albuquerque, United States.

MABxience, which originally planned to package vaccines developed by the University of Oxford and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in a Mexican laboratory, had to ship them to Albuquerque over the summer because Liomont (the Mexican laboratory) unable to obtain necessary filters to divide and package vaccines.

These glass filters with microscopic perforations are made in America and its export was regulated since May 2020, when Donald Trump invoked a rule promoted by Harry Truman during the Korean War, the Defense production law, which allows the White House prevent the sale of products abroad that you consider essential to defend the United States.

Trump had reinstated the law banning the sale of respirators, gloves and goggles to doctors, but in February, Biden invoked this 1950 law again, this time to block the export of supplies to produce vaccines and syringes.

To avoid the complications this created, AstraZeneca ordered Hugo Sigman’s lab to send to Albuquerque its first two production batches, which are used to produce 12 million vaccines, and these are the ones that will begin to be distributed in two weeks to the Latin American countries that have entered the program of the Slim Foundation, which sells Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines to governments for $ 4 each. Of these 12 million, 900,000 doses will reach Argentina, as they have assured Bugle sources aware of the operation.

In mayonnaise, according to government estimates, they will start arriving in Buenos Aires planes with vaccines that will be packaged in Mexico, because Liomont now was able to buy the filters and go into production Ordinary. “AstraZeneca has been late with us for a long time. They say they will start shipping the vaccines made in Mexico in May. I hope it will be like this», He said this Monday to Bugle a very important official of the Casa Rosada.

Liomont was able to buy the filters after Mexico managed to loosen restrictions that Biden had imposed. After blocking the sale of vaccines, the new president has started to implement what some analysts in Washington are calling a “health diplomacy” which seeks to compensate, among other problems, Chinese and Russian vaccine distribution in Latin America, which arrived in the region thanks to the geopolitical strategy of Beijing and Moscow.

Two weeks ago, the White House announced that it would send 2.5 million AstraZeneca vaccines to Mexico as a donation, which are stored in warehouses and cannot be applied in the United States until after. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approve them. Canada will receive 1.5 million additional doses.

Both Mexico and Argentina have told the United States that allow the sale of necessary supplies to divide and package vaccines in Liomont and even Foreign Minister Felipe Solá asked the Secretary of State for the weekend Antony blink that the United States authorize the sale to Argentina of AstraZeneca vaccines that are in stock, as published by Infobae.

Today, in Liomont de México there is material to be produced 24 million doses and MABxience ships a batch every ten days with enough active ingredient to manufacture six million vaccines. Each of these batches contains a few tens of liters which, after passing through filters and combined with the substance produced in Mexico, are packaged in six million bottles and distributed by AstraZeneca.

In the government, they believe that, if no more obstacles appear, with this system implemented by the Slim Foundation, AstraZeneca will be able to send to Argentina from May about three million doses per month. This vaccine can be stored in a common refrigerator – with temperatures of 4 to 7 degrees – and there should be a three-month window between the first and second dose.