Cuba immunizes its vulnerable population with two developing vaccines - Ips Cuba
LA HABANA, 19 may 2021 (IPS) – “Esto es lo mejor que nos ha pasado”, asegura Victoria Díaz tras recibir la primera dosis de Abdala, uno de los proyectos de vacuna anticovid-19 con los cuales Cuba aspira a inmunizar este año a toda su población.
Resident in Havana del Este, one of the 15 municipalities of the Cuban capital, she is 66 -year -old retired told IPS that she went along with her 85 -year -old husband, to administer the drug because “we are sure that this vaccine does not harm.Is more than studied ".
Díaz, who spent 72 hours of injection claims to feel good, is dedicated to attending to his home where his daughter also lives with a three -month -old baby, something that has forced her to be stricter with the sanitary protocols that, “even vaccinated,We will have to keep for a good time, including masks, ”he warns.
On May 10, the so -called “Intervention Study” in Risk Groups and Territories began in four municipalities, to which the remaining capital demarcations will be added during May and June.
The objective is to immunize around 1.7 million people over 19 years old from the city of 2.2 million inhabitants, with more than half of the contagios and deceased of the country, due to COVID.
The schedule in this experimental phase also contemplates the drugs in some of the 15 Cuban provinces, in the population over 60 years, as in the group of 40 to 59 years.
Abdala and Sovereign 02 will be administered, anticovid-19 prospects developed by the national biopharmaceutical industry and unique that travel through phase three and last of clinical trials.
It is a peremptory decision until the regulatory authority, the Center for State Control of Medicines, Teams and Medical Devices authorizes mass use, which could happen in mid -June, according to the Ministry of Public Health.
The intervention study received green light at a time when Cuba supports the worst moment of the pandemic caused by the SARS-COV-2.
Until this Tuesday 18, the Caribbean archipelago accumulates 126 755 infected and 826 deaths, since March 2020 when the first cases were reported.However, the proportion of deceased with respect to the total population is low if compared to nations of the area.
To this is added the circulation of new strains, especially the South African variant, with greater transmissibility and associated with the rebound of serious, critical and deceased cases since December, experts point out.
The safety and immunization results of phases I and II of clinical trials, and the preliminary evaluation of phase III of Sovereign 02 and Abdala, still underway, justify “that this intervention has more benefits than risks to our population,” he explainedPublic Health Minister José Ángel Portal, in a television appearance on May 7.
The highest health authority added that “the vaccination of different population groups must contribute to the decrease in sick and deceased, in addition to enhancing a possible decrease in transmission, which would allow a gradual return to social and economic activities throughout the National territory".
By the end of June, 22.6 percent of the 11.2 million inhabitants on the island could have received any of the antigens.
If the regulatory authority authorizes mass vaccination, one third of Cubans and Cubans could be immunized in July and 70 percent in August, according to official estimates.
Statistics indicate that until this Tuesday 18 more than 455,000 people have received at least one dose of sovereign 02 and Abdala during health intervention in Havana, as well as among health personnel, biotechnological centers and other risk groups.
Abdala, with a three-dose vaccination scheme, 14 days apart between each one (0-14-28) is, according to Cuban scientists, capable of inducing high levels of functional antibodies against the disease.
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"The most frequent reactions we have noticed are mild, such as pain in the site of hypertensive puncture and decomposition, because some patients get a little nervous, but nothing serious," the doctor's andíma cid, head of one of theworking groups in a polyclinic in Havana del Este.
The protocol to administer the drug starts from voluntariness, and includes the filling of a data form and the person's consent signature.
Before the injection, the health personnel take pressure and temperature and then each individual remains an hour under observation to evaluate any adverse reaction, IPS checked when visiting one of the vaccinations.
“After the third dose, the immune system will need an additional time to respond to the disease with antibodies.In case of contracting it, the endless complications and sequels that it leaves will not be experienced;We will pass it as a flu, ”said Cid.
Abdala, Sovereign 02 and the other three candidates for anticovid vaccines that are developed in Cuba are based on protein subunits technology, which include harmless portions (a part of the Sars-Cov-2 protein virus, so that the bodyrecognize them as a strange element and produce T lymphocytes and antibodies that attack the virus.
Perspectivas
Cuba is the first Latin American nation with its own drugs to face the coronavirus and before concluding 2021, it could join the small group of those that have all or almost all its immunized population.
It is an event with social, political and economic connotations, as it occurs in a southern country in development, with a structural crisis of its economy and overwhelmed by the effects of pandemic, more rigorous due to the hardening of the embargo that applies the governmentof the United States since 1962.
The Cuban biotechnological industry has more than three decades of experience and international guarantee in the manufacture of vaccines, against diseases such as meningitis B and C and hepatitis B, among others.
Such expertise and proven technological platforms for their development, expedited the five candidates to face the coronavirus;If sovereign 01, Sovereign Plus and Mambisa are counted, also in clinical trials, although in less advanced stages.
As points in their favor, drugs require temperatures between two and eight degrees Celsius for conservation, which decreases logistics problems to store them;Nor do they compete with each other due to productive capabilities, since their components are prepared in different scientific centers, specialists point out.
The Caribbean country is able to produce 100 million doses of vaccines this year, sufficient to also offer them to other nations, health authorities have said.
In the Latin American area, Venezuela, Mexico and Peru have shown interest in acquiring them once certified.
"The sovereign vaccine of Cuba everything indicates that it is of the highest technical quality, we are also working to see how we help them finish their elaboration process, hoping to finish the preliminary part of studies and see how we help," confirmed the 16May Argentine President Alberto Fernández, in statements to a television station in his country.
Available data reports that sovereign 02 can raise the body's immune response to 75 percent after the second dose, applied within 28 days.
This indicator would rise to 96 percent with a third dose of sovereign plus, considered the only one developed worldwide for convalescent of the disease, according to official information.
Since April 26, the third phase of the 02 Sovereign Clinical Test is developed with 24,000 volunteers from seven provinces of Iran, from the agreement signed in January between the Finlay Vaccines Institute, in Havana, and the Pasteur Institute of the Pasteur of thePersian nation, for the technological transfer and complementarity of investigations.
Certify the effectiveness of the Cuban antigen would open the doors of its application in the Nation of the Middle East, with more than 82 million inhabitants.