08/12/2020 - 19:07
- Clarín.com
- Politics
President Alberto Fernández confirmed this Wednesday that the private laboratory AstraZeneca will begin to produce in Argentina a vaccine against the coronavirus that it developed in conjunction with the University of Oxford and assured that the objective is to have the medication available in the "first semester of 2021" .
The Head of State explained that the intention is "to produce between 150 and 250 million vaccines for all of Latin America , with the exception of Brazil, which will be available for the first half of 2021."
Later, President Fernández pointed out that the AstraZeneca authorities informed him that "they calculate that in the first semester we will be in a position to vaccinate."
"Latin American production will be in charge of Argentina and Mexico , and that will allow timely and sufficient access to potential vaccine for all countries in the region," said the President.
The president confirmed that the local production is part of an agreement that the Slim Foundation signed with the laboratory that is in charge of making the vaccine that specialists from the University of Oxford made.
"This agreement allows Latin America and Argentina in particular to be able to access the vaccine between 6 and 12 months before ," said President Fernández.
The President indicated that "the price of the vaccine is calculated to be between 3 and 4 dollars a dose."
Details of the agreement
The president indicated that the agreement establishes that the "active substance of the vaccine" will be produced in Argentina, in a laboratory selected by AstraZeneca .
"This is an immense challenge for the national industry and for us it is also a recognition of the quality of Argentine laboratories," he said.
On this, Fernández explained that "Argentina was selected because the chosen laboratory has technological conditions that allow the earlier development of the vaccine."
Followed, he pointed out that Mexico will be in charge of completing the production process and packaging the vaccine. "Finally, all the production will be distributed equitably according to the demand of the Latin American governments," he added.
The AstroZaneca Laboratory in Argentina. (Photo: Germán García Adrasti).
On the eve, the Minister of Health Ginés González García himself announced that Argentina will have the possibility of having "its vaccine against the coronavirus in the first quarter of next year."
That formula against the coronavirus is one of those that achieved encouraging results and is in phase 3 of the studies, the last before it can be distributed for use.
The news came after the record of deaths from the coronavirus, which are more than 5,000 since the first case was identified on March 3, and on the eve of the deliberations to define the next stage of the quarantine, especially, in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA).
AFG
