The covid-19 vaccine is closer but not its distribution 2:58
(CNN) –– Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced a $ 1 billion loan to Latin America and the Caribbean so that countries can access the coronavirus vaccine during a virtual meeting with their Latin American counterparts that took place on Wednesday, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico.
"The Chinese Foreign Minister said that the vaccine developed in his country will be a public benefit of universal access, and that his country will designate a $ 1 billion loan to support access (to the vaccine) for nations in the world. region, ”says the statement.
During his daily briefing on Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador thanked China after the loan was announced.
"We are very grateful to China, to the Chinese government, the president - they remember that I had the opportunity to speak to him on the phone - we asked him for support with medical equipment, many aid flights have arrived from China," he said.
"There has always been a sufficient supply of equipment, medicines, and now there is this offer," he added.
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Wednesday's virtual meeting was led by Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Wang Yi. Their counterparts from Argentina, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay also joined.
Before the meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in his daily report that during the pandemic, “China and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, although separated by an ocean, have united against this common enemy. " "They have carried out practical and effective cooperation for the benefit of all our peoples," he added.
The spokesperson said that the meeting "would consolidate the consensus between the two parties on the joint fight against the pandemic, would cement mutual political trust, defend multilateralism" and build a community with a shared future for the regions.
Latin America became the epicenter of the global pandemic in late May. A CNN analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University last week found that Latin America and the Caribbean had suffered more deaths from the coronavirus than the United States and Canada, although the latter had still reported more deaths per capita.
Brazil has the second highest number of cases worldwide, after the United States, with more than 2.2 million people infected, according to Johns Hopkins figures. Chinese biotech company Sinovac has started a Phase 3 vaccine trial in the country, along with another Phase 3 trial from Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
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Peru, Chile and Mexico are also among the top ten countries in confirmed cases, while the virus is spreading in Venezuela, where concerns have been raised about the deteriorating health system.
The work that nobody wants to do: bury the victims of covid-19 4:05Government responses to the virus have radically differed in Latin America. However, informal work and high levels of inequality are among the factors driving the outbreak increase in the region.
The coronavirus has also deepened the rift between the United States and China, as the Donald Trump administration has repeatedly lashed out at China for its initial response response to the virus.
CNN's Zamira Rahim and Emma Reynolds contributed to this report.
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