translated from Spanish: The government raised the idea of making 100% of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the country

Health Minister Carla Vizzotti told British Ambassador Mark Kent on Monday about the possibility of completing the packaging process required by AstraZeneca vaccines produced in the country, as the necessary technology is available here. The request made at a meeting between the civil service member and the diplomat is part of a series of alternate paths sought by the national government to receive the doses that it has already paid and were expected for this time of year. 

COVID-19 Vaccination PlanA total applications: 8,139,526Vacunds with 1 dose: 7,122,073 people Vaccinated with 2 doses: 1,017,453 people Public Vaccination Monitor https://t.co/HoQztPaLaI — Ministry of Health of the Nation (@msalnacion)
May 3, 2021

Argentina produced the active substance in the laboratory of the company mAbxience in Garín, that is, it did its part, and sent it to Mexico for the filtration and packaging process, where the impossibility of importing products from the US delayed the return to the country of doses. At that meeting, which was also attended by presidential adviser Cecilia Nicolini, the delayed doses of AstraZeneca were discussed via the COVAX mechanism, as this was the case with doses of CovidShield, the same vaccine but produced in India. 

Mark Kent, British ambassador to Argentina | Photo: Instagram

The conflict increased as the Asian country decided to close the export of vaccines from the health tragedy that lives these days from an exponential increase in COVID-19 cases. >

Last week AstraZeneca confirmed, in case anyone had not noticed, the delay in sending the promised doses and assured that they will begin arriving in the first half of 2021.For this reason the entrepreneur Hugo Sigman, owner of the laboratory where the active substance occurred was denounced and charged to the Federal Justice and then sent to Mexico and the United States, for the taxation of the former to complete the process. 

Original source in Spanish