Exclusive: How Argentina lost the Pfizer vaccine
But the problem is that Argentina did not close the agreement months ago when Mexico, for example, secured 34 million doses. The Mexican government, unlike Argentina, did not put all its chips on Sigman, although the country is also part of the AstraZeneca vaccine production.
And Sigman would have been a determinant for Argentina not to close with Pfizer just in case the AstraZeneca vaccine, which he is in charge of developing for the country, was delayed as it finally happened. The opportunity was within reach, the two laboratories met with Alberto and asked him for permission to make tests in the country. The same thing was done in Mexico and López Obrador took advantage of it to close with the two laboratories and he already has 34 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine guaranteed.
On July 10, Fernández met in Olivos with the general manager of Pfizer in Argentina, Nicolás Vaquer, and the scientific director of the Infant Foundation, Fernando Polack, who informed him that Argentina was selected to carry out one of the test phases for a possible vaccine against the coronavirus COVID-19.
Polack, a world-renowned infectious diseases specialist, was in charge of carrying out the trials. But he was not alone: he had the collaboration of another Argentinean who is key in the global structure of the company based in New York: Pfizer's Vice President of Vaccine Research and Development, Alejandra Gurtman, a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires.
Polack and Gurtman went down in history this very Thursday, when the prestigious specialized magazine The New England Journal of Medicine determined the efficiency of Pfizer's vaccine in 95%. Polack is the first name of the list of scientists that appears named by the magazine.
However, despite the nationality of these two outstanding scientists, in Argentina they met with Sigman's business voracity, which with its influence over the president and the Minister of Health managed to have it considered as "Plan A" a month after the meeting in Olivos between Alberto and Polack. When Pfizer asked for authorization in Anmat last week, Sigman would have moved its influences. As Pfizer's request for authorization from Anmat to vaccinate in Argentina was coming up, Sigman was quick to say that AstraZeneca had begun producing the vaccine on November 25.
Days later, the image of the AstraZeneca vaccine entered a worldwide crisis, to the point that the New York Times, the most important newspaper in the world, spoke harshly of its failures and of the lack of transparency of the laboratory that partnered with Sigman in Argentina.
The president seemed to take note of that this Thursday and denied Sigman. He spoke about the AstraZeneca vaccine "if it is finally put into production", thus denying that it is already being manufactured as announced by the executive.