Mexico Agrees With Three Laboratories to Get COVID-19 Vaccines

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) on Tuesday signed an agreement with AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and CanSino laboratories to receive nearly 140 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines starting in December.

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"We will not lag other countries. Mexico will be one of the first countries to have the vaccine," AMLO said.

His administration signed with the British laboratory AstraZeneca a pre-purchase of 77.4 million doses of its vaccine, which has already been tested in 44,000 people and is applied in double doses. These medicines will arrive in Mexico between March and August 2021.

With the American laboratory Pfizer, the AMLO administration agreed to pre-purchase up to 34.4 million doses of a double-dose vaccine that has already been tested in 30,000 people and that would arrive in Mexico from December 2020.

Finally, with the Chinese laboratory CanSino, Mexico agreed to a pre-purchase of 35 million doses of its one-dose vaccine, which has been tested in 40,000 people.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard also recalled that his country joined the World Health Organization's COVAX facility, which will allow 25.8 million Mexicans to be vaccinated.

Adding up all the international agreements and contracts signed by the AMLO administration, Mexico will vaccinate 116 out of 130 million inhabitants in the next year. Finance Minister Arturo Herrera also explained that his country will spend US$1.6 billion on vaccines.

As of Tuesday, Mexico had reported 821,045 COVID-19 cases and 83,945 deaths. This country has the highest number of deaths from COVID-19 after the U.S., Brazil, and India..