• EMERGENCY: Mexico’s drug safety agency (COFEPRIS) approved emergency use of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, a development that the Mexican government expects will allow it to step up its vaccination effort, hampered by the delay in worldwide deliveries of other vaccines.
• PURCHASE: The world’s third country with most coronavirus deaths in absolute terms, Mexico is expecting the delivery of 400,000 Sputnik V vaccine doses in February. Mexico’s authorization coincided with Phase 3 trial results showing Sputnik V being 91.6 percent effective.
• DELIVERIES: “The production, the manufacture of vaccines is the limiting factor in the whole world but some countries are fortunate to be well organized to be able to put the vaccine as soon as it arrives”, Mexican undersecretary of health Hugo López-Gatell said Wednesday.
• NUMBERS: The Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is still the only one being used in Mexico but deliveries have been delayed due to production upgrading. As of late Tuesday, Mexico has applied 677,539 vaccine doses but has only applied 45,748 second doses.
