Maduro says Venezuela will produce Cuban vaccine

Venezuela hopes to produce 2 million doses per month of a Cuban coronavirus vaccine, President Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday.

The South American country will also take part in Phase 3 trials for the Abdala vaccine produced by its socialist ally.

“We’ve signed an agreement to produce in our laboratories... two million vaccines a month of the Abdala vaccine... for August, September, approximately,” said Maduro in a television address.

Earlier in the week, the government said that it would have already purchased the 30 million vaccines it needs but for economic sanctions, led by the United States.

Cuba has developed four vaccines that are in various stages of clinical trials.

The island nation has already started vaccinating its healthcare workers with its two vaccines still in the third phase of clinical trials.

One of those is Abdala, which is being given to 124,000 healthcare workers, while 48,000 volunteers are taking part in a parallel Phase- 3 clinical study.

Should it be approved, Abdala would be the first COVID- 19 vaccine entirely developed and produced in Latin America.

Venezuela’s vaccine rollout has been slow, with the country receiving just 250,000 Russian Sputnik V vaccine doses and half a million from China’s Sinopharm to date.

The government said it had paid just over half of the amount it needs to acquire 11.3 million doses through the World Health Organization’s COVAX mechanism.