Mexico receives Oxford Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine

Mexico has received a consignment of 870,000 doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine injections from India, and the government stated as it prepares to prioritize older adults in the next phase of its vaccination campaign. Mexico also expects shipping of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine to resume, with 494,000 doses arriving on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard announced. Sunday's cargo accounted for about 42 percent of the two million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford, which Mexico plans to ship from India, the government announced.

Mexico and Argentina have an understanding with AstraZeneca to provide the vaccine for the eventual delivery of 250 million doses in the Latin America region, with economic support from the founding of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.

Mexico began vaccinating health workers in December but struggled to reach its targets amid global shortages and delays in Pfizer's vaccine.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the country reported nearly 1.98 million COVID-19 cases and more than 173,000 coronavirus-related deaths. This is the third-highest number of deaths in the world after the United States and Brazil.

Mexico will then vaccinate adults over 60, a group that represents 12 percent of Mexico's nearly 130 million people, between February and April.

"The vaccinations already available, and they will not stop coming so that the national treatment plan does not stop," President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a news conference in the southwestern state of Oaxaca.

The country has so far received only 1,636,350 vaccine doses, as per the government data, but has arrangements for millions more, including China's CanSino and Russia's Sputnik V vaccinations.

It accepted the active component for two million doses of the CanSino vaccine on Thursday. In addition, Mexico has secured enough vaccines to cover 20 percent of its population through the global COVAX program, which aims to ensure that developing countries have access to vaccines, though those are yet to begin.