With at least the first dose of Abdala, designed by the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center (CIGB), 269,272 people have already been vaccinated in Havana.
This product, still under evaluation of the results of the third phase of clinical trials involving 48,000 volunteers from three eastern provinces, demonstrated safety and immunogenicity during its clinical studies, CIGB Research Director Verena Muzio assured on Thursday in a television conference.
The expert pointed out that Abdala is going through a health study that involves 120,000 subjects, and after concluding the administration of three doses to all the people in the third phase of the research, the confirmatory stage of efficacy began.
‘At present, we are checking whether those who received the vaccine candidate do not get sick, or if they do, do not go on to severe forms. We are also assessing the efficacy in preventing transmission,’ she noted.
Both Abdala and Soberana 02, the latter developed by the Finlay Vaccines Institute (IFV), have immunized 326,000 healthcare workers and vulnerable patients from several Cuban regions included in the health intervention process.
Soberana 02, also in the third phase of clinical trials with 44,010 volunteers from Havana and in an intervention study with 150,000 volunteers, including 75,000 from the health and biopharmaceutical sectors, demonstrated safety in the different periods of clinical analysis.
‘Based on the data obtained in the pre-clinical phase and those obtained on safety in the first and second phases of studies, as well as the preliminary results of immunogenicity collected during the trials, experts decided to move on other phases of the product’s development,’ its creators said on different occasions.
The health intervention in Cuba has been going on since May 12 with the purpose of contributing to the decrease in the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, as well as controlling the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which will facilitate to return to the common activities of society.
Isla de la Juventud special municipality, where 17,103,000 people have already received the first dose of the Abdala vaccine, was added on Wednesday to the territories that started this process.
Cuba has five vaccine candidates against Covid-19. Soberana 02 and Abdala, in addition to Soberana 01 and Soberana Plus, from the IFV; and Mambisa, from CIGB.
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