Mexico City, Dec 11 (AP) Mexico's coronavirus spokesman said Thursday the country's median age of death from COVID-19 was a shockingly young 55, as compared to an average of 75 in many European countries.

Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell said that nonetheless, Mexico's future coronavirus vaccination programme would target the oldest Mexicans first.

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López-Gatell said the country's high rates of obesity, diabetes and hypertension explained Mexico's lower average age of death.

He said Mexico has among the highest rate of obesity in the world López-Gatell said Mexico's approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine could come Friday.

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But he said all acquisitions of vaccines would be at the federal level, and that individual state governments could not purchase their own.

That came after one opposition-party state governor said some fellow governors were weighing acquiring vaccines on their own.

Mexico has seen a total of 1,217,126 test-confirmed coronavirus cases and 112,326 confirmed deaths, although official estimates of deaths are closer to 150,000.(AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)