Mexico regulator approves Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine

Mexico's health regulator has granted emergency authorisation to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.

Health Undersecretary Hugo Lopez-Gatell, to this end, told a news conference: "Mexico's health regulatory agency, Cofepris, has granted emergency use authorisation to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine."

Britain, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have already given the vaccine emergency approval, making Mexico the fifth country to do so. 

The Mexican government announced this week it would begin vaccinations against the coronavirus at the end of December, with a first batch of 250,000 doses to immunise 125,000 people, since the vaccine requires two shots. 

Medical staff battling on the front lines of the pandemic will be the first priority of the immunisation programme, and doses will be administered only in Mexico City and in the northern state of Coahuila, due to the specialist deep freeze and logistics requirements of the vaccine. 

Mexico signed an agreement to purchase 34.4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. After the initial round of vaccinations, it hopes to reach a rate of one million a month between January and March, and 12 million in April, the government said. 

Mexico also has preliminary purchase agreements with the Chinese-Canadian project CanSinoBio for 35 million doses of its vaccine candidate, and with the British firm AstraZeneca for 77.4 million doses of its candidate. It is also part of the international Covax mechanism, which allows it to buy another 51.6 million doses. 

Mexico is the fourth worst hit country in the world with more than 113,000 deaths and 1.22 million cases of Covid-19 as of Friday.