There were many hopes for this collaboration.

Now, for the first time, there is a vaccine manufactured in Latin America that has been approved by the World Health Organization.

It is a version of the British Astrazeneca vaccine, production of which is being initiated by the Argentinian company mAbxience and will be completed by a Mexican laboratory.

The director of the Pan American health organization, Carissa Etienne, speaks of an "important milestone for Latin America".

Tim Niendorf

Political Editor.

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In fact, this news gives a glimmer of hope, as the pandemic has hit the region particularly hard.

Only recently, the German Institute for Global and Area Studies from Hamburg calculated that Latin America has so far recorded a third of all Covid 19 deaths worldwide, although not even one in ten people lives there.

Everyone can still see the pictures of the Brazilian cemeteries, but the country with by far the highest number of deaths per inhabitant is Peru.

It was precisely there that the coronavirus showed the limits of the health system, although the country could look back on many years of economic growth.

Lonely bottom: Haiti

More vaccine can help every country in the region, with vaccination rates differing widely in Latin America. At the forefront are Cuba - with two of their own vaccines that have not yet been approved by the WHO - and Chile. According to the online database “Our World in Data”, both countries have vaccinated around 90 percent of their population at least once and around 85 percent completely. Chile has now even announced that it will be the second country in the world to give the fourth dose of vaccine after Israel. It should start in February, first of all older people and other vulnerable groups should be addressed. Even during the first vaccination campaign, the country was a pioneer, vaccinations were quickly being administered everywhere at that time when the rate of vaccination caused displeasure in Europe, for example. Ecuador also wants to get faster now. The South American country,whose vaccination campaign is decent, wants to be the first state in Latin America to introduce compulsory vaccination in view of the omicron mutant, which should apply to everyone who lives in Ecuador or travels the country.

But in Latin America there are also countries that are falling behind sharply.

According to “Our World in Data” in Honduras, Paraguay, Bolivia and Guatemala, not even half of the respective populations are partially immunized.

Haiti, where only 0.62 percent of the mostly poor population is fully vaccinated, brings up the rear.

It is not only there that the WHO target of 40 percent of the population in each country to be fully vaccinated by the end of the year is not being met.