A health worker holds a vial of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V. ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP
Mexico seeks new options due to the shortage of Pfizer doses.
The plan is to cover the delay of the American pharmaceutical company with the purchase of vaccines from CanSino, from China, and the Russian Sputnik V. The Government has detailed this Tuesday that it expects the arrival of almost 21.4 million doses between January and March, to immunize more than 14 million inhabitants during that period with four different prototypes.
Two-thirds will come from Russia and China, while the rest will be completed when Pfizer's production is regularized and distribution of the Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine begins.
"There is little left," insisted the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, while the country is going through the most delicate period since the arrival of the pandemic.
Mexico has registered more than 10,000 daily cases in 12 days of the last two weeks and broke the record for a single day, registering 21,366 infections last Friday.
The moment is critical because, while the Covid-19 epidemic rages, the flow of millions of vaccines that the Government acquired in recent months has reached a dropper.
The need for a plan B became clear after Pfizer announced this week a cut to half of the lots planned for this month for expansion works at its plant in Belgium, where they will try to quadruple production to meet the huge demand of vaccines in the world.
That has been combined, the López Obrador Administration has assured, with an exhortation from the United Nations for countries that have already been able to access the doses to postpone deliveries so that states with fewer resources can also receive vaccines.
"The most difficult thing is to have the vaccine in February and March, and we consider that by April and May we are going to have enough," said the president.
Mexico's new strategy will be based, above all, on the agreement to buy the Russian vaccine.
At the beginning of the month, the spokesman for the pandemic, Hugo López-Gatell, traveled to Argentina - which has already been applying Sputnik V since the end of December - to establish contact with representatives of the Kremlin.
There will be 7.4 million doses before the end of the first quarter of 2021, which will help protect 3.7 million inhabitants, given that the Russian vaccine works with two applications.
The contract has not yet been signed, the Mexican authorities have indicated, but it will be decisive for the next few weeks.
Between January 25 and February 12, Mexico expects to receive one million vaccines, 900,000 will be from Russia.
The other 100,000 will be the CanSino doses, requiring only one application.
The Mexican authorities will focus during the next few days when Sputnik V completes the procedures to be approved for emergency purposes, while CanSino is expected to present a first cut of information on the last phase of its clinical trials to advance approval.
On another front, the Secretary of the Treasury, Arturo Herrera, negotiates with Pfizer to know how long it will last and how many vaccines Mexico will receive during the extension of shipments.
The main concern of the Mexican authorities is that people who have already received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine can receive the second application.
López-Gatell has said that a council of vaccination experts is analyzing how long the 21-day period between the first and second doses can be extended.
The official has said that there are indications that it can be postponed up to 28 days, but authorities are looking for evidence that allows them to defer applications for up to 42 days.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard has tried to send a message of calm, saying that there will be no significant changes in the doses of Pfizer that were expected to receive until March, although he has not ruled out that new unforeseen events arise.
Under the most up-to-date delivery plan, Pfizer is expected to resume shipments from mid-February, with 781,950 doses arriving.
During March, weekly deliveries of more than 550,000 vaccines are expected from the US pharmaceutical company and by the end of that month, two million doses of AstraZeneca will begin to be distributed, which is already approved for use in the country.
The authorities are betting that the vaccine is the answer to combat the high mortality left by the pandemic.
"By the end of March we will finish vaccinating all adults over 60 years of age and this, according to scientists, will allow us to reduce mortality from covid by up to 80%," said the president.
The breaking point will be how Mexico, the fourth country with the most deaths in absolute terms, faces up to 141,248 deaths in the coming weeks.
"Let us all make the effort, let us continue to behave responsibly, as we have been doing, in these two months that remain," the president repeated, "this is going to improve."
