October 12, 2020: Mexico has paid an advance of 159.8 million US dollars to guarantee the purchase of a successful vaccine against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) through the COVAX initiative, the Mexican foreign ministry reported on Saturday.

According to the ministry, Mexico on Thursday transferred the funds and presented risk guarantee documents for another 20.6 million US dollars to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which coordinates the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX Facility).

The contract with COVAX Facility guarantees Mexico's acquisition of enough vaccines for up to 20 percent of the population, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

This percentage of the population represented more than 51.5 million doses for a vaccination plan of two doses per person, and COVAX currently has a portfolio of nine candidate vaccines from various countries, according to the statement.

The ministry said that the contract signed by Mexico would allow the government to choose a vaccine according to its preferences and subject to availability.

To date, Mexico has registered more than 809,000 confirmed cases and over 83,000 deaths from COVID-19, according to health authorities.