MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina signs agreement to purchase 20 million doses of Moderna vaccine

Health Minister Vizzotti announced the deal, “while we continue negotiations with other laboratories.”

Argentine authorities have announced Sunday that an agreement had been signed with Moderna Inc for the supply of 20 million doses of their vaccine against Covid-19.

“We are taking a key step in our strategy of having all possible technological platforms, while we continue negotiations with other laboratories”, said Health Minister Carla Vizzotti.

Moderna's drug is an mRNA vaccine that encodes the Spike (S) protein, which has shown an efficacy greater than 90%, with an adequate safety profile, which explains its emergency authorization for use on people 18 years of age and older, by the regulatory agencies of more than 50 countries, and that is included in the Emergency Use List (EUL) of the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to Argentina's Health Ministry, 27,613,744 vaccines have been already distributed nationwide, of which 24,737,696 have already been applied: 19,707,031 people received the first dose and 5,030,665 have had both doses.

Up until Sunday, 266,263 active positive cases were registered throughout the country, while 4,282,904 patients have recovered, while 5,349 people with coronavirus were in ICUs.

The vaccines stemming from Sunday's agreement are not due in Argentina before the first quarter of 2022, although “a donation from the United States government of more doses of this vaccine” is expected sooner, according to Vizzotti. This lab's drug is the first immunizer based on the messenger RNA platform to be applied in Argentina.

Argentina has already applied Sputnik, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccines. The number of coronavirus deaths has reached 98,781 out of 4,647,948 infections since the pandemic began on March 20, 2020.