Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica have become the first countries in Latin America to start vaccinating their populations against COVID-19, with frontline healthworkers and nursing home residents receiving the first shots.
Mexico, which has one of the world’s highest COVID-19 death tolls, launched its mass vaccination programme at a hospital in the capital, Mexico City, in a televised event on Thursday.
“It’s the best gift I could receive in 2020,” 59-year-old Mexican nurse Maria Irene Ramirez said as she received the injection.
“It makes me safer and gives me more courage to continue in the war against an invisible enemy. We’re afraid but we must continue.”