MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico on Tuesday announced a huge bet on Chinese vaccines, without releasing information about their effectiveness.
Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the Mexican government had signed agreements for 12 million doses of the unapproved Sinopharm vaccine and increased its contracts for a total of 20 million doses for the Coronavac dose made by Sinovac in China.
Sinovac deliveries have already begun, with 20 million full doses expected by July. Sinopharm vaccines will be delivered between March and June.
A total of 32 million doses, plus at least 4 million doses of the CanSino shot, would prevent an estimate of the 5 million doses of vaccine that Mexico has so far obtained from other sources.
However, Ebrard’s office has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the effectiveness of Chinese photography.
Sinopharm claimed that its vaccine was 79% effective based on intermediate data from clinical trials, but, like other Chinese companies, did not publicly publish its data from late-stage clinical trials.
Experts in Hong Kong estimated the effectiveness of the Sinovac vaccine at about 51%. This photo has already been approved for use in Mexico.
The CanSino vaccine has been approved in Mexico and appears to have an efficacy rate of approximately 65.7%,
A total of six vaccines were approved for use in Mexico, which received relatively small amounts of each. Mexico administered only about 4.7 million doses of all vaccines, a small amount, given the country’s population of 126 million.
Government policy sets out the strange situation in which some Mexicans, mainly in urban areas, will receive the Pfizer vaccine, which is about 95% effective, while most will receive one of the Chinese vaccines with a much lower effectiveness. Mexico has contracts for a total of about 34 million doses of the Pfizer shot, but deliveries have been slow, with less than a tenth of that amount delivered so far.
Amid a lack of public data on China’s vaccines, doubts about their effectiveness and safety are still widespread in their dependent countries.
Inoculations with Chinese vaccines have already begun in more than 25 countries. None of China’s three globally used candidates publicly disclosed their data from late-stage clinical trials.
Mexico has suffered nearly 190,100 confirmed deaths. However, Mexico conducts so few tests that government figures on excess deaths suggest that the actual value was well over 220,000 in early January, when the government stopped publishing these data. Confirmed case tests total more than 2.1 million.