The Latest: Mexico, Russia leaders to discuss vaccine supply

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday about obtaining doses of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, his foreign affairs secretary said Sunday.

Marcelo Ebrard said via Twitter the two leaders would speak Monday morning about the bilateral relationship and supplying doses of the vaccine.

The vaccine has not been approved for use in Mexico, but the government is desperate to fill supply gaps left by shortages of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Mexico has given more than 618,000 vaccine doses.

A week ago, López Obrador said that his government had agreed with a U.N. proposal to delay shipments of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine to countries like Mexico that had existing purchase agreements, in order to get more doses to poorer countries quicker.

Mexico has registered nearly 150,000 COVID-19 deaths and more than 1.7 million infections. Hospitals in the capital have been near capacity for weeks as a surge of cases followed the holiday season.

Earlier this month, Mexico’s assistant health secretary Hugo López-Gatell, visited Argentina in part to learn about its review of the Sputnik V vaccine. Argentina started using the vaccine in late December.

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