Covid-19: Cuba is developing its own vaccine and will soon offer it to its tourists
A poster promoting the Cuban vaccine against Covid-19 Soberana 2, at the Finlay Institute in Havana, January 20, 2021. AFP - YAMIL LAGE
Text by: Domitille Piron
5 mins
To protect itself against the coronavirus, the communist Caribbean country has chosen sovereignty by developing its own vaccine.
While the latter enters the last phase of its clinical trials in early March, the country ensures that it is already able to immunize its entire population by the end of 2021. Havana even makes it an argument for tourists, who could also soon enjoy it.
Publicity
Read more
From our correspondent in Havana,
It is a question of sovereignty
for Havana
: the
Cuban vaccine against Covid-19
has also been called
Soberana
.
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez once again reminded the United Nations Human Rights Council: "
Thanks to the development of Cuban science and the dedicated work of our scientists, we hope to be able to vaccinate our entire population within the year. .
"
Cuba is currently developing four vaccine candidates.
The most advanced, Soberana 2, enters the third and final phase of clinical trials in early March on a test population of 150,000 people in Cuba and Iran.
This sovereignty strategy is explained by the price of vaccines on the world market, but also because production is not up to demand, according to the director of BioCubaFarma, the state biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Eduardo Martinez Diaz.
It also ensures that Soberana 2 has advantages that other vaccines do not have:
“
One of the advantages of our vaccine candidates is that they do not require a freezing system -
they need a temperature of 2-3 ° C, like other vaccines.
Another advantage of our vaccine, unlike others, is that with the appearance of new variants of the virus, a third dose should be applied to increase immunity, but some vaccines do not allow this.
In the case of our vaccine, it is possible to apply several successive doses of reinforcement.
"
This vaccine is developed by BioCubaFarma and the Finlay Institute, and this scientific advance is based on 40 years of Cuban biotechnological know-how.
The country already produces 8 of the 12 vaccines administered to children and exports them to around 30 countries.
Cuba without Covax or purchase of vaccines
But for the vaccine against Covid-19, Cubans now have an obligation of result.
Because the country has not purchased any dose of the other vaccines currently injected in the world and is not part of
the Covax device either
.
This system ensures an equitable distribution of vaccine doses throughout the world.
The bet of sovereignty in the production of its vaccine is therefore risky for Cuba, which must also face American sanctions to develop it, as explained by Eduardo Ojito Magaz of the Center for Molecular Immunology: “
BioCubaFarma fights fiercely for manage to source raw materials.
Some of our suppliers require that none of the components we use contain material from the United States market.
"
An export product that will be open to tourists
For now, the results of clinical trials are encouraging, according to the authorities.
These ensure
the safety and efficacy
of their vaccine, so much so that production is already underway.
The country plans to 100 million doses by the end of the year, enough to vaccinate the 11 million inhabitants ... and make this vaccine an export product.
While Cuba lacks medicine and food for its people, some struggle to understand how the country can afford to develop such a vaccine.
But Soberana 2 could well become a financial windfall and even an exchange value with countries like India, Iran, Venezuela and Vietnam.
This vaccine is also becoming an argument
to attract tourists to the island
.
"
Tourists will be offered the option of being vaccinated if they wish,
" explains the director of the Finlay Institute in a video which proposes a new tourist slogan for Cuba: beach, mojito and vaccine!
But the authorities and scientists assure that Soberana 2 has humanitarian purposes, the benefits being only a side effect, as Vicente Vérez explains: “
We are not a multinational, we operate in reverse.
Our goal is to provide more access to health, and the benefits will be the consequence, that will never be our priority
.
"
►
To read also
:
Havana awaits a sign from Washington
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Cuba
Coronavirus
Vaccines
On the same subject
Journal of Haiti and the Americas
Havana is waiting for a sign from Washington
Cuba: faced with an acceleration of contaminations, Havana goes back under curfew
Cuba opens its economy to the private sector to boost growth and jobs