Mexico City, May 28 (IANS): Mexico has authorised the emergency use of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, health officials said.

On Thursday, the country's Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks said it authorised the J&J jab for emergency use following an unanimous favourable opinion by experts, dpa news agency reported.

"Starting from today Mexico has one more Covid-19 vaccine option," Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard tweeted.

"It is always good news to have more approvals for safe and effective vaccines of good quality," Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell tweeted.

Vaccines developed by AstraZeneca, Pfizer, the Russian-made Sputnik V, India's Covaxin and the jabs developed by Chinese companies CanSino and Sinovac have previously been authorised by Cofepris.

Also on Thursday, Mexico received 2.2 million AstraZeneca doses through the COVAX vaccination equity programme as well as 585 million doses of Pfizer, the Health Ministry said.

Mexico was the first country in Latin America to start its vaccination campaign last December.

So far 28.5 million jabs have been administered, with 20 million people having received at least one dose of vaccine out of a population of some 127 million.

With 221,963 fatalities, Mexico has the fourth-highest Covid death toll in the world, after the US, Brazil and India.

It passed the grim milestone of 200,000 officially reported deaths in late March.

The country has recorded more than 2.5 million cases since the pandemic began.