Mexico: Agreement with Cuba to Acquire Abdala Covid-19 Vaccine

The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced on Thursday that there is an agreement with the Government of Cuba to acquire the vaccine against Covid-19 called Abdala and continue the fight against the pandemic.

"There is an agreement with the Government of Cuba to acquire Cuban vaccines. It has not been possible to materialize until now, but we do have a cooperative relationship, especially in the medical field", said the President during his morning press conference.

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With the proposal to continue working together, the Head of State pointed out that "we have good relations with the United States, and we also have very good relations with the Government of Cuba.

These relations were described by the Mexican President as ties of cooperation for development and international solidarity.

On September 18, the President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, had ratified the willingness to work on the production and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines produced on the island, within the framework of the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).

Patria: the Mexican vaccine

López Obrador also stated that the country authorized 180 million Mexican pesos (almost 9 million dollars) to research and develop the Mexican vaccine called Patria against the Sars-Cov-2 virus.  

"Research is already underway in Mexico, and it is going very well, for the Patria vaccine. We are going to have our vaccine, we are working for that, it has all the support," he said.

He said that all the analyses are being made to determine the efficacy of the drug, and stated that when the vaccine, developed by the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt), is ready, the immunization campaign against Covid-19 will be much easier.

Last April, the head of Conacyt, María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, pointed out that the Patria drug uses the Newcastle disease virus as a vector, which is not harmful, and which has been used in the Mexican laboratory Avimex for more than 15 years.

The Mexican anticovid drug generates antibodies based on the coding of the S protein, the spike-shaped virus envelope that facilitates the entry of the virus into the cells.