Skip to main content
Latin America summit calls for co-operation against Covid and slams West's vaccine hoarding
Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard speaks while holding a document with the conclusions made at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States during a new conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Saturday, September 18, 2021

LATIN American leaders have announced the foundation of a regional health agency to help fight Covid-19, as well as condemning Washington’s bullying and rich nations’ vaccine hoarding.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) summit, held in Mexico City over the weekend, that “our region has more Covid-19 related deaths than any other region in the world. It has been extremely difficult to get vaccines. It is unfair, abusive that so many countries do not have access to vaccines.”

Reports from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism published in February accused pharmaceutical giant Pfizer of “playing hardball” in negotiations over vaccine supply in Latin America, telling Argentina and Brazil to put up sovereign assets including military bases and federal bank reserves as collateral to guarantee its profits.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa speaks during an event to deliver benefits and to decry the protests against diesel price hikes, in Otavalo, Ecuador, September 24, 2025
Latin America / 13 November 2025
13 November 2025

LEE BROWN highlights the latest attempts to undo progressive reforms instated during the presidency of Rafael Correa

SELF-DETERMINATION: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro posters cover the walls in downtown Caracas, Venezuela
Features / 24 October 2025
24 October 2025

To defend Puerto Rico’s right to peace is to defend Venezuela’s right to exist, argues MICHELLE ELLNER

READY TO REPEL ATTACK: People rally in the Catia neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, in support of the enlistment campaign called by the government of President Nicolas Maduro, August 29 2025
Features / 3 September 2025
3 September 2025

US baseless accusations of drug trafficking and the outrageous putting of a bounty on a president of a sovereign country do not bode well, reports PABLO MERIGUET

President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order about the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, August 5, 2025,
Features / 7 August 2025
7 August 2025

FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ says the US’s bullying conduct in what it considers its backyard is a bid to reassert imperial primacy over a rising China — but it faces huge resistance