MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico will receive the active ingredient for a total of some 4 million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shots by the end of next week, a senior Mexican official said on Friday, shipments that should help Latin America fight the virus.
An air cargo for around 1.3 million doses that arrived in Mexico from the United States on Thursday night was the first part of the shipments of Argentine-made active ingredient for the vaccine, the official said.
The Mexican government previously said Thursday’s shipment contained about 1.2 million doses. Under the deal with AstraZeneca, Argentina makes the vaccine active ingredient that is then bottled in Mexico and sent across Latin America.
The active ingredient for the remaining 2.7 million or so doses will reach Mexico between this week and next, the official said, asking not to be named to speak freely.
An Argentine government spokesperson said they could not for the moment confirm the arrival of Argentine-made ingredients in Mexico over the next week.
The first doses under the deal are now due to hit the streets next week, after delays in preparing the bottling plant in Mexico pushed back an original March deadline.
Many countries in Latin America, a region with some of the world’s worse infection rates, have struggled to find adequate supplies of vaccines to battle coronavirus.
When the AstraZeneca factory in Mexico reaches full capacity it is expected help relieve that pressure by providing some 150 million doses for the region this year.
Mexico’s own vaccination program, which got off to a slow start after Western companies delayed deliveries of promised doses, has picked up pace in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, Mexico injected a record 727,638 doses, health ministry data shows.
(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Additional reporting by Nicolas Misculin in Buenos Aires; Editing by David Alire Garcia)
