With no more vaccines in sight, government expects Joe Biden to release doses for Argentina

Pharmaceuticals AstraZeneca has already warned the Ministry of Health that vaccines whose active ingredient is made in the plant Mabxience in Garín, province of Buenos Aires, they are still trapped in a chain of delays and failures. Most likely do not come back packaged in the country in May. China previously informed the Foreign Ministry that will not send more doses vaccine Sinopharm over the next few months, as Beijing focuses on vaccinating its own citizens.

In this perspective, and without other contracts with laboratories in sight, Alberto Fernández will not be able to wait until this month that the Russian Fund for Direct Investment release cargo from Sputnik V at random and with a frequency impossible to predict for the Argentinian officials.

This situation could change if Joe Biden decides to strengthen his program of “vaccine diplomacy” and announce the transfer of doses stored in American warehouses to areas in critical situation due to the pandemic, such as India and several Latin American countries, among which Argentina stands out, stifled by the lack of vaccines on the immediate horizon.

In the Casa Rosada, they hope that this image of desperate rarity be changed in the next few days with an announcement from Biden, who said Tuesday in Washington that 70% of American adults would be vaccinated within two months.

The American president, who has just won the applause of Cristina Kirchner and also of Alberto Fernández for his plan to promote the purchase of goods and services produced on American soil and to tax the super-profits of the big sectors of the Democratic Party itself which are lobbying to speed up vaccine transfer.

This Monday, the ruling majority of Coronavirus Crisis Subcommittee of the House of Representatives, issued a letter in Washington which he addressed on April 30 to the Secretary of Health Xavier Becerra and the secretary of state Antony blink, in which they ask for a meeting so that explain how and on what dates The White House plans to distribute vaccines that are stored in the United States and that will not be used to immunize its own population.

In their letter, House Members Raja Krishnamoorthi, Carolyn B. Maloney, James E. Clyburn and Stephen F. Lynch tell Blinken and Becerra that their goal is to: for Biden to “distribute over 60 million doses of AstraZeneca” that are in U.S. warehouses that have not been approved for use by U.S. health authorities, but yes for those from other countries.

Specifically, members of the subcommittee say that these vaccines could be sent to “countries like India, Argentina and Brazil, affected by massive contagions” at the moment.

The legislative subcommittee, as Democratic representatives reminded their own ministers in the letter, is mandated to “conduct a full and comprehensive investigation” into “the issues related to the coronavirus crisis”, including the “preparation of the response to the crisis and the development of vaccines and treatments “and the rest of the decisions on this subject taken by the executive power in Washington.

At Casa Rosada, they believe Biden’s decision might even happen in this same week. “We are waiting for good news from the United States,” he said Bugle this Tuesday an official who knows the details of the negotiations between the government and Washington. In the Frente de Todos, they are even delighted that shipments reach 5 million doses, a figure that could help Argentina weather the vaccine drought in the weeks to come. However, no member of the government risks mention specific dates or numbers.