MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The United Nations-backed COVAX facility has offered Mexico $10 million worth of COVID-19 shots for children a day after the country’s president vowed to complain to the U.N. over missing doses, a senior Mexican official said on Tuesday.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he would raise the issue after Mexico received less than half of the $75 million worth of doses it paid for under the COVAX facility, which aims to distribute shots equitably worldwide.
“COVAX reached out to us and said they would offer a little over $10 million worth of Pfizer vaccine doses for children, and we’re in the process of closing the deal,” Mexico’s coronavirus czar Hugo Lopez-Gatell told a news conference.
Lopez-Gatell, a deputy health minister, said Mexico had yet to finalize the deal.
“We need them now, that’s essential,” he added.
After inoculating the adult population, Mexico had declined a shipment of adult doses and requested those for children instead, Lopez-Gatell said. COVAX initially said these were not available for mid-to-high income countries, he added. The World Bank considers Mexico an upper middle income country.
The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, which backs the COVAX scheme alongside the World Health Organization, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Sarah Morland and Raul Cortes Fernandez, Editing by Dave Graham and Josie Kao)
