Mexico plans to buy millions of doses of Russia’s controversial Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine if it is approved by Mexican health regulators, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday.

Mexico, which has the world’s fourth highest official COVID-19 death toll, has the possibility to acquire 24 million doses of the vaccine, enough for 12 million people, he told reporters.

Russia said on Monday that 1.5 million people around the world had received Sputnik V, which has faced criticism because it was registered before large-scale clinical trials.

Mexican deputy health minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell acknowledged there were “concerns” about its safety and efficacy as the results of phase 3 trials have yet to be published.

Lopez-Gatell, the country’s coronavirus czar, travelled to Argentina last week to learn about its experience with the Russian vaccine.

He said Mexican regulators were expected to make a decision soon on whether to approve Sputnik V.

The Latin American nation began a mass immunization program on December 24 using the coronavirus vaccine developed by US drugs giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.

It has also authorized the shot developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

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