MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico will vaccinate more children against COVID-19, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday, urging global health authorities to deliver the doses it had ordered for the purpose.
Mexico last year began inoculating some at-risk children, and children with disabilities, but has so far held back from rolling out a broader vaccination program for minors.
Lopez Obrador said he was awaiting doses under the COVAX program, run by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
“We want what they owe us, because we paid in advance,” Lopez Obrador told a regular morning news conference. “For them to deliver vaccines for kids, (so we can) start vaccinating children with the right vaccines.”
“Children without any kind of illness will also be vaccinated, in accordance with WHO protocol,” he added.
Mexico has received more than 24 million vaccines so far through COVAX, according to data from the Pan American Health Organization. COVAX was set up to help offer equitable COVID vaccine distribution globally.
Lopez Obrador said a “massive campaign” to apply booster vaccines to adults would be carried out in April, and those remaining could later get vaccinated at a public health clinic or hospital.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry and Raul Cortes; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
