April 19, 2022
On Tuesday, Mexico rated the Cuban Abdala vaccine as very good, both in adult and children’s format, as explained by the Undersecretary of Public Health Prevention, Hugo Lopez-Gatell.
In response to a question on child vaccination during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s daily morning press conference at the National Palace, the undersecretary asked not to be misled as Mexico has never been opposed to vaccinating children.
He explained that “we have finished immunizing those most at risk up to children under five years of age and onwards, and we have activated the process to obtain the infant vaccine through the UN Covax mechanism, but we have not made the specific infant vaccine available”.
He confirmed that Mexico made arrangements with Pfizer laboratories, which agreed to convert the current pending contracts for adult vaccines for the child vaccine and will be able to deliver it in the second semester of this year.
But it is not only Pfizer, he said. “There are other very good ones, such as the Cuban Abdala, with which that country has already immunized 96 percent of its children from the age of 2. We do not consider at this stage from that age, but Abdala is an excellent option and has already been used in other countries”.
Here we continue to think of a broad vaccination panorama and we are not closing ourselves to a single pathogen, and we are looking at the possibilities of acquisition.
Abdala, he clarified, is in the process of being evaluated by the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris), including that of children, and we are potentially considering acquiring it.
He clarified that Cofepris’ sanitary authorization gives the possibility of using a safe product in Mexico and with its help, what we are doing is to anticipate a sanitary regulation process that takes time.
This is what is happening with the Cuban Abdala vaccine for adults, which is undergoing this process in Cofepris, and with the vaccine for children, there could be an authorization, but what precipitates its use are our vaccination schedules, he explained.
He reiterated that the Ministry of Health has clarified on numerous occasions that it will vaccinate children, and that what has been done is to comply with a consistent signal since 2020 of giving an order to the immunization starting from the person with the highest risk to the youngest.
This implies attending first to the elderly, to people with chronic diseases that weaken their immune system.
Then the less elderly until reaching the youngest, complying with the technical evidence that children between five and 11 years of age have the lowest risk of complications and even death.
We expanded, he said, the vaccination schedule, first with the basic outlines starting from top to bottom in age and people at higher risk such as children and adolescents with comorbidities who have been vaccinated for five months.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latino Americano – English