Coronavirus vaccines donated by the United States will not reach Argentina but will reach its partners in Mercosur

The United States has already started with the donation of vaccines against the coronavirus made by different laboratories in this country. And member countries of Mercosur the only one who will remain without receiving anything for the moment will be Argentina because it still has not signed any contracts with these companies or because this class of drugs has not yet been authorized by the ANMAT (National Administration of Drugs, Food and Medical Technology) to apply in our population.

There are 14 million doses of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson that the government of Joseph Biden has earmarked for much of Latin America. Cargoes have already arrived over the weekend in Brazil and the two other common market partners, Uruguay and Paraguay, will get them in the first days of July.

Argentina is only allowed one of the three vaccines included in US donations. Pfizer was approved by ANMAT in December 2020 for emergency use, but later the government of Alberto Fernández did not enter into a commercial agreement to acquire them. This possibility has been raised in recent months and is still relevant, according to sources from Casa Rosada. “The negotiation is progressing”They said from there but did not provide further details, relying on a confidentiality clause.

The Argentine government intends to enter into a deal with Pfizer as it is one of the few sera approved for pediatric use. Those under 18, for the moment, have been excluded from the official vaccination plan, although the latest contract signed with China’s Sinopharm for 24 million doses opens another window for this age group, since the giant’s laboratory Asian has already recently suggested its use in children aged 3 to 17 years. Various groups of parents who have heyes with previous diseases They started demanding a few weeks ago that they be included as a priority given the possibility of a new outbreak in the country.

In the case of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines (the latter single-dose and also known as Janssen), they have not yet been able to get clearance from ANMAT.

The arrival of the doses that Biden donates to Argentina is therefore blocked. The issue was discussed at a meeting held Tuesday by Argentina’s Foreign Minister Felipe Solá with White House Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the Italian city of Matera, where both are participating in the Summit of G20 foreign ministers. Solá thanked the US official for the gesture but explained the legal issues so the donation could take place.

The United States has acquired 500 million vaccines from different laboratories in its own territory and has announced that it will donate them to countries that need them during this year and the next. According to the statement released by the White House, some will be delivered directly to “Regional priorities” and others will join the COVAX solidarity mechanism, coordinated by the United Nations. This list included Colombia, Argentina, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Panama and, therefore, these countries will receive two donations. US spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the casting will be done “as quickly as possible. We have many doses to share with the world, but it’s a Herculean logistical challenge.”

Brazil was one of the first beneficiaries of this Biden initiative. Last Friday, 2 million doses of Janssen arrived at Viracopos airport, in the municipality of Campinas, about 100 kilometers from San Pablo. They were received there by the Brazilian Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, and the United States Ambassador to Brazil, Todd Chapman. “These vaccines are part of our efforts to ensure that the Brazilian population is immunized. Until September, 160 million Brazilians should receive a dose of hope in their arms. And with the donation from the US government, we will accelerate the hope of our people, ”Queiroga said.

The next day, Saturday, another shipment was added with 964,000 additional doses from the same manufacturer and the event was celebrated by President Jair Bolsonaro on his Twitter account. Brazil is the second country in the world with the most deaths from COVID-19, with more than 509,000 deaths, only surpassed by the United States, which has around 618,000.

Uruguay to receive 500,000 doses of Pfizer against COVID-19 in July, as the secretary of the presidency of the South American country, Álvaro Delgado, announced on Friday. He did so with the Uruguayan Minister of Public Health, Daniel Salinas, and the charge d’affaires of the American embassy, ​​Jennifer Savage.

“Uruguay preferred messenger RNA vaccines. At the time we bought 3 million from Pfizer, we had made the contracts and it made everything easier, because we already had the logisticsDelgado explained.

Este moons, Paraguay, otro integrante del Mercosur, contó con la visita de la subsecretaria de Estado de Estados Unidos, Victoria Nuland, quien fue la encargada de comunicar, acompañada por el canciller paraguayo Euclides Acevedo, la donación de un millón de vacunas Pfizer, What “will arrive in the next few weeks“. Paraguay had many problems getting vaccines, including those that would arrive through the Covax mechanism, where it set aside 4.3 million. Of the 7 million inhabitants of the country led by Mario Abdo Benitez, only 665,000 have received a single dose.

Other Latin American countries have also started to receive these donations. In the case of Peru, the government of President-elect Pedro Castillo confirmed on Monday that in the “next few days” he will receive two million doses Pfizer vaccine.

Peru became the fifth country in the region to accept Biden’s gesture. In addition to Brazil, Mexico received 1.3 million vaccines from the same pharmaceutical company. For its part, Honduras – which has recorded some 7,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic, has obtained 1.5 million doses of Moderna.

The United States had promised aid to other Latin American nations like Colombia (2.5 million Janssen would correspond to it, as President Iván Duque learned on Monday), Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Republic, Haiti and other countries of the Caribbean Community (Caricom).

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