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The City negotiates vaccines with the United States, but will seek to include them in the national distribution

2021-05-06T11:36:14.290Z


The head of the Buenos Aires government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta met with a representative of the Biden government. The attempt to add their own doses could serve to bring positions closer to the national government.


Bernardo Vazquez

05/05/2021 13:56

  • Clarín.com

  • Politics

Updated 05/05/2021 1:56 PM

The

City of Buenos Aires continues with its plan to incorporate vaccines into the health system

and, within this framework, the Head of Government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta held a meeting this Wednesday with the United States Government Business Manager MaryKay Carlson, at headquarters of Uspallata.

However, in a context of shortage of doses and in which production is completely destined for national states,

the meeting was a kind of preamble considering that Rodríguez Larreta plans to visit New York and Washington

during the second semester.

Buenos Aires sources acknowledged that the City will continue trying to acquire vaccines in the market, although they maintain that at present the possibility is prohibited internationally.

They believe, however, that it

could be a good possibility to bring positions closer to the government of Alberto Fernández

, after the marked differences regarding the suspension of face-to-face classes, which the Supreme Court deactivated on Tuesday, in a ruling in which it endorsed Buenos Aires autonomy to resolve on the issue.


"A concrete possibility is that

if at some point we get direct access to vaccines, we include them within the national plan

," they told

Clarín

from an office in Parque Patricios.

That means that, even with the lack of doses that affects the City due to the way in which they are distributed from the Nation, the official plan will be to acquire them to add them to the general distribution.

Any chance of purchasing vaccines from the City depends on the political will of the Nation, and in this case the United States enables, in agreement with La Rosada through, access to doses of AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson and Moderna, to cite four laboratories with which there could be approaches.

It happens that

the North American country has millions of surplus vaccines, which it could authorize

, as other powers such as Russia and China have done.

In the case of AstraZeneca, the Joe Biden administration could release up to 60 million doses from the Anglo-Swedish laboratory to countries that need them.

The shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines to Argentina has been delayed, after the Government announced last year the purchase of 22 million doses, of which it paid a part in advance.

According to Buenos Aires sources commented to this newspaper,

another open window is Israel

, which also has a significant surplus of AstraZeneca vaccines that could be included within the Covax Fund, for which doses are already arriving in Argentina.

Nevertheless,

Any negotiation from a jurisdiction such as the City is tied to the global decision that it is the national states that incorporate vaccines

, not the cities, and even less the private ones.

"Meetings will continue to be held, but today there is no market," they repeat in Uspallata.

After the meeting

, Rodríguez Larreta said that "the vaccination plan that the United States is carrying out is very ambitious and hopeful for the rest of the world

."

And I add;

"The experience in many North American cities shows that vaccination is essential to get out of this crisis."

The meeting was also attended by

Fernando Straface,

Secretary General and International Relations,

James O'Mealia

, Acting Political Counselor of the US Embassy, ​​and

James-Michael Saxton-Ruiz

, Counselor for Science, Technology, Environment and Health of the embassy.

Rodríguez Larreta and Carlson also talked about the

next official tour of the head of government to that country, when the health situation allows it

. The City of Buenos Aires has a fluid relationship with multiple cities in the United States: in terms of climate change, for example, the head of the Buenos Aires government is the regional vice president of C40, a network chaired by the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti. This year, Buenos Aires will present its Climate Action Plan at COP26, to be held in Glasgow.


Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-05-06

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