Following a decision by the United States, AstraZeneca vaccines would begin to arrive in Argentina

Ignacio Miri

04/06/2021 11:59

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 04/06/2021 11:59

A decision by President Joe Biden that unblocked the export from the United States to Mexico of the

filters necessary for the production and packaging of vaccines

unblocked the arrival of

Oxford AstraZeneca

vaccines

to Argentina.

In two weeks,

900,000 doses

will be ready to be sent to Buenos Aires,

which were manufactured at the

MABxience

plant

in Garín, Buenos Aires province, and fractionated and packaged at the

Albany Molecular Research Inc.

(AMRI)

laboratory

in

Albuquerque

, United States.

MABxience, which originally planned to package the vaccines developed by the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in a Mexican laboratory, had to ship them to Albuquerque over the summer because

Liomont

(the Mexican laboratory)

could not obtain the necessary filters

to fractionate and package the vaccines.

These glass filters with microscopic perforations are made in the United States and

their export has been regulated

since May 2020, when Donald Trump invoked a rule that Harry Truman promoted during the Korean War,

the Defense Production Act

, which allows the White House to

prevent the sale abroad of the products

that it considers essential to defend the United States.

The AstraZeneca vaccine developed in conjunction with the University of Oxford.

AP

Trump had restored the operation of the law to prohibit the sale of respirators, gloves and protective glasses for doctors, but in February,

Biden again invoked that law of 1950

, this time to block the

export of supplies to produce vaccines and syringes

.

To avoid the complications that this situation generated, AstraZeneca ordered Hugo Sigman's laboratory to send

its first two production batches

to Albuquerque

, which are used to produce

12 million vaccines

, and those are the ones that will begin to be distributed in two weeks to the Latin American countries that joined the

Slim Foundation

program

, which sells Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines to governments at $ 4 per unit.

Of those 12 million, 900,000 doses will reach Argentina, according to

sources familiar with the operation

assured

Clarín

.

In

May

, according to estimates by the Government,

the planes with the vaccines that will be packaged in Mexico will

begin to arrive in Buenos Aires

, because Liomont was now

able to buy the filters and enter into

normal

production

.

“AstraZeneca is long overdue with us.

They say they are going to start shipping the vaccines made in Mexico in May.

I hope that is the case,

”

a very important Casa Rosada official

told

Clarín

on Monday

.

Liomont was able to buy the filters after Mexico

managed to loosen the restrictions

imposed by Biden.

After blocking the sale of vaccines, the new president began to implement what some analysts in Washington call

a "health diplomacy"

that seeks to compensate, among other issues, the

distribution of Chinese and Russian vaccines

in Latin America, which reached the region driven by

the geopolitical strategy of Beijing and Moscow

.

Two weeks ago, the White House announced that it will send to Mexico as a donation 2.5 million AstraZeneca vaccines that are stored in warehouses and that cannot be applied in the United States until the

Food and Drugs Administration (FDA)

approves them.

Canada will receive another 1.5 million doses.

Both Mexico and Argentina demanded that the United States

allow the sale of the necessary supplies

to divide and package the vaccines in Liomont and even Foreign Minister Felipe Solá asked Secretary of State

Antony Blinken over the weekend

that the United States allow the sale to Argentina of those AstraZeneca vaccines that are stored, as published by Infobae.

Today, in Liomont in Mexico there is material to produce

24 million doses

and MABxience

dispatches a batch

with enough active

ingredient

every ten days

to

manufacture six million vaccines

.

Each of these batches contains a few tens of liters that, after passing through filters and being combined with the substance produced in Mexico, are packaged in six million bottles and distributed by AstraZeneca.

In the Government they believe that, if no more obstacles appear, with this system implemented by the Slim Foundation, AstraZeneca will be able to send

some three million doses per month

to Argentina as of May

.

This vaccine can be kept in a common refrigerator -with temperatures of 4 to 7 degrees- and there must be a three-month window between the first and second doses.