President López Obrador and the head of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) touted a homegrown Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday.

A low-cost vaccine candidate using technology developed by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York was described by López Obrador as a “motherland vaccine.”

The research behind the development of the vaccine, to be called Patria, is an achievement of the Mexican government, he said.

Conacyt director María Elena Álvarez-Buylla said the project will enable Mexico “to recover sovereignty in … the production of vaccines.”

She said the vaccine candidate will be used in human clinical trials in Mexico once testing on a range of animals has been completed. She predicted that 90 adults will receive shots of the vaccine later this month or in May. The Conacyt chief also said the vaccine could receive emergency-use authorization from drug regulator Cofepris as soon as December.

The federal government invested 150 million pesos (US $7.5 million) in its development.

López Obrador said the vaccine’s name was inspired by Ramón López Velarde, an early 20th-century poet from Zacatecas.

Source: El Financiero (sp) 

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to indicate that the Patria vaccine, rather than having been developed in the U.S., is being developed in Mexico. Mexico News Daily regrets the error.