Mexico receives 8 lakh AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine from India

India has exported 8,70,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, domestically developed by the Serum Institute of India, to Mexico, the Mexican government revealed in a statement.

According to the AlJazeera report, the country is going to inoculate the elderly in the next phase of the inoculation drive. The shipment from India will make up about 42 per cent of the two million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine.

Also read: WHO panel recommends wide use of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine

Furthermore, Mexico has also ordered 494,000 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines that will arrive on Thursday this week, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said in a media brief.

Mexico and Argentina struck a deal with AstraZeneca to produce a coronavirus vaccine for the distribution of 250 million doses in Latin America. This will be carried out with the help of the foundation of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, as per media reports.

The first phase of the vaccination drive began in December in Mexico. However, amid a global shortage of the vaccine, it struggled to meet its target to cover all health workers in the first phase.

Also read: AstraZeneca vaccine effective against Covid-19 variants: UK

Moreover, Mexico has secured enough vaccines to cover 20 per cent of its population through the global COVAX program. Mexico has reported around 19,92,794 coronavirus cases, with over 1,74,000 deaths and 1,548,174 people have recovered from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University data.