Cuba approves emergency home-grown vaccine
>>HAVANA: Cuba on Friday approved its home-grown Abdala vaccine for emergency use, the first Latin American coronavirus jab to reach this stage and a possible lifeline for a region trying to battle a killer pandemic with modest means.
The country’s CECMED health regulator gave the go-ahead after Abdala’s makers last month announced the vaccine candidate was more than 92% effective at preventing Covid-19 disease after three doses.
Cuba is working on five coronavirus vaccines, and in May started immunising its population using two of them — Abdala and Soberana 2 — even before they received approval.
By this week, 6.8 million of Cuba’s 11.2 million people have received at least one dose of either vaccine, while 1.6 million have the required three doses.
The country has not bought or sought vaccines from elsewhere, and aims to immunise its population before the end of the year.
In June, the state-run BioCubaFarma laboratory said Abdala “shows efficacy of 92.3% in its three-dose scheme.”
The World Health Organization has set a 50% efficacy threshold for coronavirus vaccines to qualify for approved global roll-out, though individual countries can green-light jabs without the UN stamp for domestic use.
The CECMED said approval of Abdala was based on its analysis that it met requirements for “quality, safety and effectiveness.”
And Aica Laboratories, where the vaccine is produced, said there had been “a rigorous process of evaluation of the dossier and... inspections of the plants involved.”
Under American sanctions, communist Cuba has a long tradition of making its own vaccines, dating back to the 1980s. Nearly 80% of its inoculations are produced locally.
On Thursday, the Finlay Institute which makes Soberana 2 said it, too, showed efficacy exceeding 91% after three doses.
Eduardo Martinez, president of BioCubaFarma, said Soberana 2 will be submitted to the regulatory authority in the coming days for its own emergency approval.
Cuba has recorded more than 224,000 Covid-19 cases among its population of 11.2 million, and some 1,450 deaths.
It has seen a recent spike in infections, with a new daily infection record reported on Friday.
On Wednesday, authorities sent an urgent deployment of doctors and medical equipment to the province of Matanzas — where foreign tourists have continued to visit — after hospitals there reached capacity.
A local company has been commissioned to make more hospital beds for Matanzas.
Elsewhere in Latin America, the situation remains worrying. Brazil has the world’s second-highest death toll — more than 530,000. Colombia recently crossed the grim threshold of 100,000 deaths and Peru is now the country with the world’s highest death toll per capita Mexico said on Tuesday it is battling a fresh pandemic wave.