Argentina Donates COVID-19 Vaccines to 12 Countries

On Sunday, President Alberto Fernandez's administration reported that Argentina has donated over 4 million AstraZeneca vaccines to 12 developing countries since November.

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Currently, the AstraZeneca vaccine is produced in Buenos Aires by the mAbxcience laboratory. Mexico also collaborates with packing the vaccines.

So far, the countries that have benefited most from the Argentine cooperation have been Bolivia and Egypt, each of which has received one million COVID-19 vaccines. The Fernandez administration has also shipped AstraZeneca vaccines to Vietnam, the Philippines, Kenya,  Mozambique, Angola, Barbados, Grenada, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, and Dominica.

Most of the batches of donated vaccines were close to their expiry date, so the quantity agreed by each nation depended on its implementation capacity.

"Countries with higher vaccination coverage need to work together to reduce inequalities in access to health and thus avoid new variants," Presidential Adviser Cecilia Nicolini tweeted on the occasion of the donation to Egypt.

On Sunday, Argentina registered 21,570 new COVID-19 cases and 152 related deaths. Since the pandemic began, this South American country has recorded over 8.3 million COVID-19 cases, 120,988 of which resulted in deaths.

Health authorities are facing the pandemic in relatively better conditions than those existing two years ago. Currently, the percentage of bed occupancy in intensive care units (ICUs) for all types of pathologies is only 49.6 percent at the national level.