Mexico approves use of Russian Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19

The Undersecretary of Health of Mexico, Hugo López-Gatell, shows a dose of the Pfizer / BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine at the General Hospital, while the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Mexico City, Mexico, December 24, 2020.

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s health authority Cofepris has authorized the emergency use of Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V, Health Undersecretary Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reported in January, after a telephone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that he agreed to send 24 million doses of the drug to apply to 12 million people in the country, the third in the world with more killed by the pandemic.

“We have a new vaccine in the repertoire,” López-Gatell said at a press conference. Earlier he announced that on Monday the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer, signed the purchase contract.

The undersecretary explained that, to begin with, Mexico expects to receive 400,000 doses of Sputnik V in February, one million in March and six million in April.

Given the doubts that have arisen in the country and in other latitudes about the drug’s efficacy, López-Gatell said that “the Russian Sputnik V vaccine is safe.”

The Russian product was 91.6% effective in preventing the development of COVID-19, according to the results of the last phase of its clinical trial published Tuesday in the international medical journal The Lancet.

For his part, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard reported that the Latin American country agreed with the Serum Institute of India to receive two million AstraZeneca vaccines against COVID-19 in February and March.

Shortly before Christmas, Mexico became the first country in Latin America to start vaccinating its population against COVID-19. However, according to the portal http://www.ourworldindata.org, it is one of the nations that has administered the least doses per 100 inhabitants in the world.