What vaccines were to be packaged in Mexico? Argentina rages against AstraZeneca – El Financiero

The country of South America In August 2020 signed an agreement to produce the active principle of inoculation in a private Argentine laboratory and send it to Mexico for packaging and later distribution in Latin America.. At the end of the year, it became the first country outside of Britain to approve the use of the vaccine.

Argentina expected the first of the 22 million doses to conform to it under this agreement for domestic production and packaging in Mexico in March. He did not receive anything.

A government source requesting identity seizure due to the sensitivity of the matter told the AP that Health Minister Vizotti and Chancellor Nikolini have expressed and demanded their discomfort with Kent over AstraZeneca’s breach of the agreement. The British government gets involved in the lab so that Argentina can “keep a portion of the production of the active ingredient” and apply it to its population.

Officials have also offered as an alternative to Argentina to receive delayed vaccines through the COVAX Fund set up by international organizations like the World Health Organization to provide countries with lower doses of resources. Through this mechanism, the South American country benefited from several thousand doses of Coffeeshield manufactured in India with the same active ingredient as the AstraZeneca vaccine, but the serious health situation in this Asian country has put restrictions on new shipments.

AstraZeneca acknowledged the delay and last week committed to settling shipments in the first half of this year., Although he did not specify a date.

With more than three million infections and nearly 65,000 deaths, the pressure on Alberto Fernández’s government has increased due to the slow pace of the vaccination process. So far, 8 million vaccines have been applied, out of a population of 40 million. One million people received only the two doses.

In this context of scarcity, Left-wing parties have submitted a bill to Congress to announce the local mAbxience laboratory for the public benefit, which is producing the active principle of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Buenos Aires.Thus ensuring that the local population is vaccinated.

For now, the Argentine government is committed to diplomacy with Great Britain, a country whose relations have historically been marked by the struggle for sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands.

“We ask the ambassador to continue searching for more and better opportunities, between the two countries, through the University of Oxford so that we can explore the possibility of being part of the vaccine production chain, in the short and medium term, and not just for the sake of Argentina,” the Minister of Health said in a statement. Let Latin America think about the strategic role of our country. “