“There is a strong research sector, it is a health care tourist destination, and it sends doctors and nurses to work all over the world, including countries on the Arabian peninsula,” the publication said.

Efforts to distribute the vaccines more widely began after Cuba achieved one of the highest coverage figures in the world.

Cuba, with its decades of state-directed investment in health care and medical research, emphasized the self-sufficiency in vaccines, to the point of producing most of those used in its national immunization programs, as per The National.

“Government figures indicate that more than 95 percent of young people between the ages of two and 18 have been vaccinated, thereby aiming to reduce transmission,” the Emirati newspaper wrote.

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