First batch of Pfizer vaccines arrives in Argentina

After more than a year of negotiations with Pfizer Laboratories, a first shipment of 100,620 COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Argentina on Wednesday as part of a deal with the US lab for 20 million doses scheduled for 2021.

Pfizer's vaccines, developed in collaboration with German biotech company BioNTech, were shipped on an American Airlines flight that arrived at Ezeiza International Airport in the afternoon.

Argentine Health Minister Carla Vizzotti received the shipment along with representatives of the US embassy in Buenos Aires and the laboratory.

The vaccines will be distributed from Monday to "adolescents without comorbidities, from the age of 17", Vizzotti said at a press conference.

The arrival of the vaccines comes after months of political controversy in Argentina and governmental disputes with Pfizer that were finally overcome after the government made changes to a legislation that the US company resisted.

Argentina's health agency approved the use of Pfizer's vaccine in December 2020 after Argentina hosted one of the largest phase 3 clinical trials to confirm its effectiveness.

But the first inoculant to be applied was Sputnik V, which was questioned by the opposition who claimed that the government had prioritised the Russian vaccine for geopolitical reasons.

Pfizer, for its part, admitted that the negotiation had been hampered by the article of a local vaccine law that, as it was written, could lead to lawsuits.

Finally, an agreement was reached in July when President Alberto Fernández signed a decree that modified those regulations.

580,000 doses are expected to arrive in September and the remaining agreed doses over the rest of the year.

Some 28.5 million people have been vaccinated so far in Argentina with one dose and 17.1 million with two, out of a population of about 45 million.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 5.2 million cases of the new coronavirus have been registered and more than 112,800 deaths.