Chinese vaccines against COVID-19 in Mexico: how many did the government buy and where have they been applied

This Sunday, the director of the Chinese disease control agency, Gao Fu, issued statements that left the world stunned, and generated concern in dozens of countries.

From the southwestern city of Chendgu, the official acknowledged that the vaccines developed by the Asian giant against COVID-19 “do not have very high protection rates”, And with surprising honesty, he admitted that authorities are looking for strategies to increase the effectiveness of these biologics.

“Now it is officially considered whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process”said Gao Fu, who explained that they are considering combining different serums, changing the period between the first and second doses, or giving a third reminder injection.

Gao Fu’s words were the official confirmation of a problem that countries like Brazil had already exposed. There, in early January, a study revealed that the Chinese biological CoronaVac, developed by the pharmaceutical company Sinovac, it was only 50.38% effective. That is, of 10 vaccinated people, it only protected five. The figure is at the limit of the minimum required by the World Health Organization (50%).

According to the Butantan Institute, a specialized agency in medical research that is responsible for developing and distributing the Sinovac vaccine in Brazil, 12,508 volunteers who worked in the health sector participated in the research.

Shortly before, in December 2020, Indonesia revealed that CoronaVac’s effectiveness was 65.3%. Although it is a higher percentage than that found in Brazil, it is still far from the 95% offered by the messenger RNA formulas of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna.

Unfortunately, these figures are not only reported with the SinoVac formula. The CansinoBio vaccine, also developed in China, has shown an effectiveness of 65.7% globally; while Sinopharm, the third biological produced by the Asian giant, reports an immunity of 79%, although data from its clinical trials are still lacking.

Gao Fu’s statements, and the investigations carried out by different countries, aroused in the last hours the concern of countries that have already signed millionaire contracts to acquire one of these three serums en masse.

Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, Singapore, Peru, Argentina and Mexico are just some of the countries that have already applied biologicals manufactured by the Asian giant. In our country, the federal government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, opted for Chinese laboratories to accelerate the vaccination campaign. To that end, he purchased new doses from Sinovac, and began negotiating a contract with Sinopharm. Even Marcelo Ebrard revealed on April 6 that he will soon travel to Beijing to try to close new agreements.

But how many Chinese vaccines has Mexico bought? How many have been applied? Where were they supplied? We tell you everything you need to know.

What Chinese vaccines did Mexico buy, and how many have arrived?

Currently, only two Chinese vaccines have been purchased in Mexico: Sinovac, which is the one that has shown less efficacy and requires two doses, and CanSinoBio, which only consists of one dose.

* SinovacAlthough initially the federal government had purchased only 10 million doses, at the beginning of March the executive signed a new contract with this pharmaceutical company and negotiated another 10 million. Namely, Mexico has bought a total of 20 million doses of Sinovac, of which four million have already arrived in the country.

* CanSinoBio: In 2020, the federal government announced the purchase of 35 million doses of CanSinoBio, of which 1,440,300 doses have already reached Mexico. The main problem with this biological is that an important part arrives in bulk and is packaged in our country, in the Drugmex laboratory, and this delays its application. The positive part is that it only requires one injection.

Thus, between the agreement with CanSinoBio and the one established with Sinovac, 45 million people in Mexico will receive serums developed in China, with protection rates, according to Gao Fu, “not very high.” As for the third vaccine created by the Asian country, SinoPharm, the federal government has not yet closed any contract, and the serum has not been approved by the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks, the body in charge of giving the go-ahead. to biologicals against SARS-CoV-2, and approve them as an emergency.

In which states have Chinese vaccines been applied?

In recent months, the vaccines that have arrived from China have been distributed to the 32 entities of Mexico.

* Sinovac

On February 20, the first shipment of Sinovac was received, with a total of 200,000 doses. All were applied to older adults from Ecatepec, in the State of Mexico. Later, on February 27, the second batch arrived with 800,000 doses that were distributed throughout the Republic.

On March 13, one million more doses of Sinovac arrived in the country. Of that total, 793,720 sera were delivered by land that were distributed among the entities of Michoacán, Jalisco, Colima, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Durango, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Mexico City, State from Mexico, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Morelos, and Querétaro. In addition, by air, a total of 206,280 doses were transported that were divided into 12 states: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, Sonora, Nayarit, Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán.

On March 18, another million doses arrived from Beijing again, the same amount that arrived on the 25th of that same month. All were distributed by the 32 entities of the national territory.