The figures of the national vaccination campaign against Covid-19 have caused a new setback to the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In five weeks, 1,900,000 doses of the Cuban drugs Abdala and Pfizer were administered – the latter only for children under five – out of a target of 20,000,000 announced last October and due to be reached next March.
The Undersecretary of Health, Ruy López Ridaura, minimized the situation by pointing out that “people should exercise some caution” since the flu vaccination is also being used.
Distrust of the Cuban dose, which is not endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), has led politicians from the ruling Morena party to look for other alternatives. Among them is former federal consumer advocate Ricardo Sheffield Padilla, who said just a week after the campaign began that he had his vaccination schedule covered with the Pfizer vaccine. “I plan to continue with this lab’s plan. It was the first one I applied and I tried to apply the two reinforcements of the same from the same supplier,” he told AM newspaper.
Last Sunday, the mayor of Cajeme (Sonora state), Javier Lamarque, was caught in a branch of the Walgreens pharmacy chain, where, by appointment, the bivalent drugs from Pfizer and Moderna against the coronavirus are offered at a price of 100 dollars. The Morenista traveled even though a vaccination module with Cuban doses has been installed in the municipal headquarters since October 31st.
In the state of Coahuila, where the Mexican government ordered the use of 70,000 expired drugs from the island, Governor Miguel Riquelme single-handedly negotiated the vaccination of 30,000 people with the bivalent dose of Pfizer. According to the statement, the beneficiaries, including elements of the army, gathered at the Plaza de las Culturas and were transported in trucks to the location assigned by Customs and Border Protection and the city of Eagle Pass, Texas.
According to official data, at the start of the vaccination campaign, there were 8,885,992 Cuban medicines in Mexico’s biological and reagent laboratories (Birmex), out of the first 9,000,000 that Mexico had purchased from the island, and of which only 114,000 had been used by June .
Despite the failure of the Cuban vaccine, López Obrador advocated the purchase of an additional 2,851,000 Cuban doses, which were delivered to Birmex on October 28 at the No. 1 military airfield in Santa Lucía, in the state of Mexico. The delivery was announced as part of the vaccination campaign.
The vaccination strategy has been questioned by experts. The 2020 National Health Award and director of the ABC Medical Center, Francisco Moreno, told journalist Carmen Aristegui that “it seemed” that those responsible for the country’s health “went to the camp to see what was there” and only cartons of them were found by Abdala and deliveries from the Russian Sputnik, the other option, both without WHO approval.
The Ministry of Health already has 3,408,000 Russian medicines, the distribution protocol for which has not yet been determined and to which states they will be sent.
________
Collaborate with our work:
The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality in deep Cuba. Thank you for accompanying us on this long journey. We invite you to continue to support us, but this time by becoming a member of our magazine. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.