Mexico to start distributing AstraZeneca vaccines in Latin America in April – Telam

From the third week of April, the first vaccines against the AstraZeneca coronavirus will begin to be distributed in Latin America, the active substance of which was manufactured in Argentina and packaged in Mexico, Foreign Minister Marcelo announced today. Ebrard.

The announcement coincided with a new call by President Andrs Lpez Obrador to the United Nations (UN) to “make more efforts in the distribution” of antigens through the Covax mechanism, intended for poor countries.

“So far, a large number of countries continue without a single dose against Covid-19,” the president said, ANSA news agency reported.

“The UN has already started delivering packages through this mechanism to countries with marginalized populations, but it is not enough, it must make a greater effort; we call it that because a greater percentage is marketed directly between labs, ”he said. .

Ebrard said that this Thursday a new shipment of the active substance will arrive to be packaged at the Liomont plant in the municipality of Ocoyoaca.c, state of Mexico, about 70 kilometers from the capital.

The cooperation agreement between Mexico and Argentina

The initiative is part of a framework for binational cooperation between Mexico and Argentina to “build capacities that ensure self-sufficiency” in vaccines against Covid-19 in the region of the Community of Latin American States and Caribbean, Ebrard said.

The vaccine developed by the alliance of the University of Oxford with the AstraZeneca laboratory is manufactured in the plant of the biotechnology company Mabxience in Buenos Aires and packaged in the Liomont laboratories in Mexico.

The agreement for the delivery of vaccines in Latin America with AstraZeneca, produced in Argentina and packaged in Mexico, is supported by telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim, whose empire spans several countries in the region.

To produce the millions of doses needed, AstraZeneca has built regional supply chains, and in 2020 through the Slim Foundation, negotiations began with the team that was developing this vaccine, seeking to join the effort and bring its production to Latin America.

On January 18, the first shipment of active substance from the Anglo-Swedish company arrived from Argentina, which caught the public’s attention, accused in the United States of falsifying clinical trials and in Europe that its vaccine causes blood clots.

However, health authorities in Europe, Britain and the United States, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), have given this vaccine a “green light” by ensuring that it is. safe and effective and that its side effects are minimal compared to the great benefit it can have on humans.

The first batch of the biologic active ingredient of this drug, for 5.23 liters, allowed the packaging of more than a million doses, which were only available last week due to the lack of certain supplies in Mexico, such as vials and syringes.

The pharmacy has agreed to produce a total of 77.4 million doses which will be distributed in Mexico and an additional 200 million requested by various Latin American countries.

President Alberto Fernández, during his recent official stay in Mexico, visited on February 22, accompanied by Slim and Ebrard, the packaging plant for vaccines against Covid-19 and checked the progress of immunizing substances.