“We anticipate that in the first weeks of March we will send the dossier to the WHO,” said Eduardo Martinez, whose group created and manufactures Abdala.
Cuba has developed three vaccines against Covid-19, including Abdala and Soberana which have been used on the island but also in countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Vietnam and Iran.
These vaccines are based on a recombinant protein, the same technique used by the American companies Novavax and French Sanofi.
BioCubaFarma has informed the WHO that it has developed a new industrial complex in Mariel, 50 kilometers west of Havana, to manufacture its vaccines on an industrial scale as required by the organization.
"They told us to send the file and that once the complex was operational, that they would come and carry out the inspection to award us the prequalification," said Mr. Martinez.
"We believe that (the Cuban vaccines) will be recognized without any problem, we have the experience and we have already had other vaccines (against other diseases, editor's note) which have gone through this prequalification process", a- he added.
Cuban vaccines "have proven to be safe", with 88% of the population already immunized and the epidemic under local control.
Under embargo from the United States since 1962, Cuba has been developing its own vaccines since the 1980s and is the first country in Latin America to have developed one against Covid-19.
The country of 11.2 million people has recorded a total of 1,062,154 cases including 8,746 deaths.
On Tuesday, it announced just 630 cases in the past 24 hours and no deaths.
Mr Martinez said initial trials at the Mariel complex met "quality parameters" required but said the company is facing funding problems.
“We managed to export vaccines and medicines at the end of last year and we are having difficulty in being able to be paid in the face of the refusal of the banks to work with us”, due to the American embargo, which delayed the settlement of raw materials needed by the Cuban pharmaceutical industry.
© 2022 AFP