There is no way that COVAX provides Mexico with enough COVID-19 vaccines for children: Laurie Ann Ximénez-Fyvie

On April 13, the Mexican government reported that vaccination for all children against COVID-19 could begin in May, once the day of mass immunization for people over 18 years of age.

According to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), pediatric biologics are planned to be obtained through the COVAX mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO).

But Harvard Doctor Laurie Ann Ximenez-Fyvie assured that there is “no way” for the organ to provide the required doses for the nearly 15 million infants - especially, with the understanding that Pfizer (dual-scheme) is the only one drug approved in Mexico for this sector.

In this way, the microbiology specialist again accused the administration of not prioritizing the budget and efforts to ensure the health of girls and boys.

“The Government does not want to spend on vaccines, while it has wasted any amount of billions of pesos like what happened last weekend (...) in a (Mandate Revocation) consultation that has no use whatsoever,” he lashed out in an interview with MVS.

It should be recalled that Ximénez-Fyvie called the Undersecretary of Health Hugo López-Gatell “indolent” for covering up Pfizer's authorization for emergency use children from 5 to 12 years of age that the Federal Commission for the Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris) had granted since March 03

On the other hand, the Head of Molecular Genetics Laboratory at UNAM also severely criticized the Federal's decision to end the inoculation campaigns once the mass days for adults are over.

This, Laurie Ann said, appears as an “improvised strategy” of the administration because of the large number of stored biologicals and some about to expire that has led to reducing the requirements that were previously insisted on their compliance.

He also noted that the resolution could reach criminal levels, because the country has only 62% of its population on a full vaccination schedule and 29.5% with the first booster - which is essential to protect against the dominant strain, Omicron, and its variants.

“How can a country end a vaccination campaign when less than 30% has received a booster; when we have not started talking about the fourth dose that is urgently required, and when more than 42 million Mexicans have not received a single dose,” he stressed.

He therefore strongly urged that vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 be made permanent, due to the unpredictable behavior of the virus and, with it, the new recommendations and development of drugs to address the new scenarios: “We don't know where it is going”.

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