PHILO PHOTO: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blows as he arrives to hold a news conference at the presidential hangar, with the presidency in the background, at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Mexico July 27, 2020. REUTERS / Henry Romero / File photo
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday he would volunteer to be among the first to try a Russian vaccine for the new coronavirus if it proves effective.
Moscow’s decision to approve the vaccine and produce the first batches here after less than two months of human testing has raised concerns among some scientists who consider that only about 10% of clinical trials are successful.
Some scientists have said they fear Russia may put security ahead of security.
“I would be the first to be vaccinated,” Lopez Obrador said at his regular morning conference.
Meanwhile, the global fax race continues.
The governments of Mexico and Argentina have partnered with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca Plc to produce a vaccine.
Martha Delgado, a Mexican deputy foreign minister, said the country needed a maximum of 200 million faxed endorsements and that if successful so-called Phase III investigations successfully closed, the first could be obtained by April next year.
The Mexican government has so far reported a total of 522,162 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 56,757 deaths.
Report by Stefanie Eschenbacher and Ana Isabel Martinez; edited by Grant McCool
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