Washington: The Business Insider web portal, one of the main US news sites on finance and the economy, highlights the progress that Cuba’s vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 show today, Prensa Latina publishes.
?Cuba is working on a? homegrown ?anti-Covid-19 vaccination program and the country aims to be one of the first in the world to immunize its entire population by the end of 2021, without help from the West,? says the article.
The Caribbean island has four candidates: Soberana 01, and Soberana 02, from the Finlay Vaccine Institute; and Abdala and Mambisa, from the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).
Professor Beate Kampmann, director of the Vaccine Center at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, interviewed by Business Insider, asserted that Finlay is “a solid Cuban company that manufactures vaccines for much of Latin America?.
Cuba produces medicines against yellow fever and tetanus for the child immunization program and “there is confidence in its ability to deliver candidates against Covid-19,” the specialist said.
Cuban proposals go through different phases of clinical trials.
The first project presented by the Caribbean island in August 2020, Soberana 01 for convalescent patients from the disease, already showed high safety in phase I of its trials, without adverse effects on people affected by the disease.
Vérez announced that phase III of clinical trials for Soberana 02, scheduled to begin on March 1, will have 42,600 volunteers, for whom the Cuban biopharmaceutical industry has already produced the first batch of 150,000 bulbs.
In addition, at the end of February the clinical trial will begin with both (Soberana 01 and 02) in the pediatric population between five and 18 years of age.
Regarding Mambisa and Abdala, Dr. Marta Ayala, director of the CIGB, said that, if the second of these continues with its favorable progress, the country could register with international bodies and begin immunization as of next August.
This product is in phase II of clinical trials, with about 680 volunteers, and they estimate to start phase III around March 15th.
For his part, Mambisa, the only one of the four Cuban candidates for nasal administration, has also been well tolerated and showed safety in people who received it during phase I of their clinical trial, Ayala said.