Mexico Govt pays USD 160 million to WHO to access COVAX vaccine plan
The latest payment will allow Mexico to acquire enough doses of a vaccine to immunise up to a fifth of the country's population of around 125 million people, the foreign ministry said.
Mexico: Mexico's government announced that it paid the World Health Organization $159.88 million to secure access to COVID-19 vaccines through the agency's COVAX plan as countries across the globe race to secure supplies.
The global health agency's COVAX Facility is a multilateral initiative running trials on several potential vaccines. The latest payment will allow Mexico to acquire enough doses of a vaccine to immunise up to a fifth of the country's population of around 125 million people, the foreign ministry said.
The foreign ministry statement added that the government had presented the "risk guarantee" paperwork for another $20.6 million, which it described as part of the contractually required commitments to access the eventual vaccine supply. The statement did not provide additional details on the second payment.
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According to the health ministry, Mexico has confirmed nearly 810,000 cases of the highly-contagious respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, along with more than 83,000 recorded deaths, though both likely represent only a fraction of the true number of infections and fatalities due to little testing.
The government signed its COVAX contract late last month.
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