Cuba is 'playing it safe' with its own Covid vaccine
In Cuba, around1,000 people are getting the Soberana 2 vaccine as part of Phase 3 double-blind study. An additional 150,000 health care workers are being inoculated with Soberana 2 as part of an “interventional study. ”Cuba is "betting it safe" with the later development of their own Covid-19 vaccines and encouraged by what they see in late-stage and experimental studies, a top Cuban vaccine scientist said.
If the trials are successful, the relatively small, communist island of 11 million that the United States has sanctioned for decades would be one of the just very few countries with vaccines to fight the coronavirus pandemic, drawing worldwide attention its potential feat. The other countries with developed vaccines, including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia and India, have significantly larger economies and population sizes.
Two of Cuba’s five vaccine candidates are in Phase 3 trials: Soberana 2, which translates to 'sovereignty,' and Abdala, named after a book by the Cuban independence hero José Martí. Unlike the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the Soberana 2 uses synthesized coronavirus proteins to trigger the body's immune system. In Cuba, “we began a bit later than the rest of the vaccines [in the world] because we had to wait and know a little more about the virus and the mechanism through which it infects cells,” Verez said. “We see a safety profile with the vaccine [Soberana 2] that is very good.”
Economy ravaged by the pandemic, decades of sanctions and a decline in aid from its ally Venezuela, the island has been grappling with shortages in food and medicine. Its economy shrank 11 per cent in 2020. But it has managed to keep the number of Covid-19 infections and deaths down with strict measures and lockdowns, compared to many developed countries worldwide. In recent weeks, the country has averaged around 1,000 cases per day, but it had meagre infection rates last year.
The final results of the Phase 3 trials are not expected for months. The government plans to have nearly all the capital inhabitants, Havana, vaccinated by May through the interventional study and the entire country’s population inoculated before the year ends. Verez said that while the vaccination won’t be mandatory, he thinks “the immense majority of the population wants the vaccine.”
For Cuba, the vaccine is as much about public health as it is a show of force; that a small communist country sanctioned by the U.S. can compete on the world stage with its own vaccine candidates. Verez said some countries had approached Cuban officials with the intent to purchase more than 100 million annual doses of some of its vaccines. He said Cuba’s vaccine production system is being reorganized to produce 100 million doses.
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