Cuba applies over 5.2 million doses of candidate vaccines

Havana, Jun 25 (Prensa Latina) Cuba's authorities informed on Friday that the total number of citizens with at least one dose of the two vaccine candidates against Covid-19 Abdala and Soberana 02 reached 5,229, 916 persons.

June 25, 2021
17:00

So far, 2, 467,275 people have received the first dose, while 1,814,981 have already received the second dose and with three doses, 947,660 are accumulated, the Ministry of Public Health detailed.

All those volunteers were vaccinated as part of the clinical trials, intervention studies and health intervention, different modalities applied in the development of Cuban candidates.

Cuba has five proposals against Covid-19: Soberana 01, Soberana 02 and Soberana PLUS, from the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV); as well as Mambisa and Abdala, from the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).

According to specialists, each of those projects is progressing with satisfactory results in different phases of clinical trials to reach the final purpose of protecting the entire Cuban population from Covid-19.

Cuba could be the first country in the world to have its entire population vaccinated by the end of 2021 against Covid-19 with its own candidates, assured the president of BioCubaFarma, Eduardo Martinez, at a press conference held on Thursday.

The executive affirmed that the country will increase the immunization rate in order to have most Cubans protected by the end of the year.

He recalled that both the project against Covid-19 of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), Abdala, and that of the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV), Soberana 02, have already surpassed the efficacy limit (50 percent), established by the World Health Organization to be considered as vaccines.

The former showed 92.28 percent in its three-dose schedule, while the latter showed 62 percent with only two doses. Soberana 02 still has to demonstrate the efficacy of its three-injection formula, in which the third is a Soberana Plus, also designed by the IFV.

In that regard, the director of this institution, Vicente Verez, clarified that the results of this last scheme are expected to be between 85 and 95 percent effective, which will be known in the next few days.

Once most of the efficacy studies have been concluded, he said, the report will be submitted to the regulatory authority, the Center for State Control of Medicines and Medical Equipment (CECMED), to request the emergency use of the candidates.

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