Argentina, Spain want vaccine patents abolished

Argentine President Alberto Fernández hosted Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Buenos Aires on Wednesday as the two leaders shared their vision for making coronavirus vaccines available worldwide more quickly.

Sánchez backed lifting patents on COVID-19 shots as a "global public good" and speeding up their distribution "to be able to vaccinate all our societies as quickly as possible".

Fernández said it was a "great concern" 90% of vaccines remained in the hands of 10% of countries, adding Argentina was moving closer to being able to produce the Russian-developed Sputnik V shot.

Fernández also had to apologize on Wednesday for making statements in which he compared the origin of Argentines with that of Mexicans and Brazilians, branded by many of his compatriots as discriminatory and stereotyped.

"Mexicans came from the Indians, the Brazilians came from the jungle, but we Argentines came from the ships," Fernandez said during a meeting with business leaders.

He later apologized in a tweet saying "whoever has felt offended or invisibilized, my apologies."

Sánchez, on an overseas which will also take him to Costa Rica, also defended the prospect of pardons for jailed Catalan separatists.