Latin American countries start greenlighting Covid treatments

In 2020 and 2021, Covid left a major mark on Latin America, though the situation is far from over, with the Omicron variant spreading quickly around the continent. Daily case records, set when Latin America was the global epicenter of the pandemic, are now being broken by countries throughout the region. Though, mercifully, deaths and hospitalizations lag behind.

There are, however, signs of hope on the horizon. Latin American countries are moving quickly to approve and purchase new treatments against coronavirus infections – a welcome change after the region trailed in the vaccine race.

The most notable example is presented by Mexico. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, who is recovering from his second bout of Covid, announced that the country’s Cofepris regulatory agency was processing the approval of two drugs against the virus: Pfizer’s paxlovid and Merck’s molnupiravir.

In the meantime, Mexico’s Health Ministry said this week that it is already in negotiations with both firms to agree purchases. The drugs will not be available to individuals but rather will be distributed through state-controlled mechanisms, in a similar way to how vaccines were. 

Regulatory approval comes in the wake of both drugs being greenlit by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The agency often serves as a benchmark...