Daily US Times: A 59-year-old nurse in Mexico became the first person in Latin America to receive a Covid-19 vaccine when her country began its vaccination programme on Thursday.
Mexico has received an initial shipment of 3,000 Covid vaccine doses of the US-German Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The country has one of the highest coronavirus related death tolls in the world, behind only the US, Brazil and India.
A short time later on Thursday, Costa Rica and Chile also began administering Pfizer-BioNTech.
Argentina also plans to start vaccinations in the next few days but has chosen the Russian-made vaccine Sputnik V for its initial phase, with a delivery of 300,000 doses arriving in Buenos Aires on Thursday morning.
Brazil, which has recorded the highest number of deaths in Latin America, is not due to start until mid-February despite a recent surge in the number of cases.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro says he is not planning to be inoculated. He believes he has developed immunity against Covid-19 as he tested positive earlier this year.
Footage of Mexico’s first vaccine receiver was broadcast during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s televised morning news conference.
The government of Mexico says it wants to vaccinate all health workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic by the end of the first quarter of 2021.
The country has recorded at least 120,000 Covid-related deaths and more than 1.3 million infections so far, according to Johns Hopkins university.
Many countries are seeing surge in cases though vaccinations have been starting in many countries as well.
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