Mexico to donate 400,000 COVID-19 vaccine shots to Central America

A man holds an empty box of AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) COVID-19 vaccine, outside the Liomont laboratory company where they are bottling the vaccine, during a news conference in Ocoyoacac, State of Mexico, Mexico May 19, 2021. REUTERS FILE PHOTO

MEXICO CITY — Mexico will donate over 400,000 AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses on Thursday to the so-called Northern Triangle Central American nations of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the Mexican foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

The vaccines will be shipped on military flights. Guatemala and Honduras will receive 150,000 doses each, while El Salvador will receive 100,800 shots, the foreign ministry told Reuters.

Only 3.8% of Guatemala’s population has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. In Honduras the percentage is 4.9% and in El Salvador 22.3%, according to figures from Our World in Data.

The three countries have so far received doses of AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer, Sputnik V, Janssen and Sinovac.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on June 9 called on countries to share excess vaccine doses, warning that if the spread of COVID-19 continues at current rates it will be years before the virus is controlled in the Americas.

At the time, PAHO said just 10% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean have been fully vaccinated, with a particularly acute situation in Central America and the Caribbean.