Cuba wants its Covid-19 vaccine

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

Cuba launched this Monday the clinical test phase of a vaccine developed by the Finlay Institute. More than 600 people will participate in this experiment, the results of which are expected for next February. To date Cuba has managed to contain the epidemic with a total of 3,717 contaminations and 91 deaths. And this vaccine in the test phase is therefore above all for Cuba a way of proving that the country is sovereign in its fight against the coronavirus.

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With our correspondent in Havana, Domitille Piron

"Sovereign 01" is how Cuba called its vaccine against the coronavirus. Because for the Cuban authorities, it is not only a question of being in the race for the vaccine but rather of ensuring the sovereignty of the island, in particular in the face of the American sanctions, increased by the administration of Donald Trump, even in pandemic time.

Patients with the coronavirus in Cuba are also treated with drugs produced on the island, by a powerful pharmaceutical industry that has been developing interferon alfa 2-B for decades, an antiviral that has demonstrated its effectiveness in the fight against the coronavirus.

And with the presentation of the vaccine "Sovereign 01" Cuba did not fail to recall its previous biopharmaceutical successes with, among other things, a vaccine against hepatitis B.

On the strength of its experience, Cuba will therefore test its vaccine on 676 volunteers, between 18 and 80 years old, who will receive two doses of the Cuban product, and whose results will be known next February.

Cuban scientists also proudly claim to be one of 30 potential vaccines worldwide to be approved for human testing; and carefully avoid mentioning the clinical experiments of its two main partners, Russia and China, which are debated.

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