Latin America receives the first supply of COVID-19 vaccine

The first formally approved batch of COVID-19 vaccines arrival in Latin America was welcomed with a VIP-fitting ceremony on Wednesday: flags, television cameras, and dignitaries lined up along the runway.

A DHL flight touched down at Mexico City's international airport, and the ground crew unloaded the first batches of ultra-cold vaccines produced by Pfizer and BioNotech.

"Today is the beginning of the end of that epidemic," said Foreign Secretary Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubón, one of the officers who came to see the plane land.

Mexico expects to receive 1.4 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech product by the end of January.

The first vaccine was to be given to health workers in Mexico City and the northern city of Saltillo starting on Thursday.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he would push for the vaccine to be used in additional areas because officials want to reach workers in about 1,000 hospitals treating coronavirus patients around the country.

Senior citizens and people with chronic diseases are due to be in the front line to receive vaccinations.

A total of 1.3 million COVID-19 infections and 119,495 deaths related to the disease have been recorded in Mexico, the fourth largest death worldwide.

Shipments of the Pfizer vaccine are scheduled to arrive in some other Latin American countries this week, and vaccine candidates from other producers are already in Brazil, and some other countries are awaiting formal approval by their health authorities.

The Brazilian Ministry of Health expects at least 150 million doses of the vaccine to be available against COVID-19, the third or more coming from the Chinese company.

A Health Ministry official, Arnoldo Medeiros, said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday that a preliminary deal to receive 46 million doses of the vaccine developed by China's Synovac Biotech could soon be expanded to 100 million doses.

The Butantan Institute of the São Paulo State Government is expected to present its late-stage trial figures for theSinovac Biotech company's vaccine called Coronavac on Wednesday, which has already begun sealing down its fill-and-finish production line.

President Jair Bolsonaro sniffed that vaccine, citing doubts about his "origins" and business dealings with a political rival, Sao Paulo Governor João Doria. But the Ministry of Health has been keen to secure its supply as the global rush for vaccines heats up.

Officials said the federal government's FioCruz Biomedical Center is also expected to begin maintenance of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the coming months. The ministry said the first shots are expected by June.

Separately, the ministry is negotiating with Pfizer to receive eight million doses of the vaccine developed in the first half of 2021 with Germany's BioNtech.

No COVID-19 vaccine has yet been approved for use in Brazil.