Havana, Cuba – Dr Gustavo Sierra is a storied name in Cuban medicine, with awards and seats on Cuba’s most powerful committees to prove it. He led the team that created a vaccine for meningococcal meningitis, a horrible infection that inflames the membrane of the brain.
That vaccine forms the basis of Soberana-01, one of five vaccines Cuba has been developing against COVID-19 in a move unmatched in Latin America or, in fairness, by any similarly sized country in the world.
Two of the other vaccine candidates, Soberana-02 and Abdala – are about to be rolled out on a grand scale. María Elena Soto, the director of primary healthcare at Cuba’s Ministry of Health, announced on April 22 that a new trial would see 1.7 million volunteers from Havana immunised.
Racing towards becoming the first country in Latin America to develop its own shot against COVID-19, Cuba is now on its stage-three clinical trial with its two domestically produced coronavirus vaccines.
Despite being under a strict United States trade embargo for decades, the island of 11 million individuals is developing five experimental shots, including Soberana 02 and Abdala, that reached the final stage trials last month.
According to Aljazeera, the names of the vaccines reveal much about how Cuba, as a country, sees the national effort.
The two vaccines that reached the final stage of trials were derived based on the country s history and culture. Soberana can be translated as sovereign, while the Abdala was named after a patriotic poem written by the revolutionary hero of Cuba, Jose Marti.
Cuba s Abdala to conclude 3rd phase of clinical trials
Cuba s Abdala to conclude 3rd phase of clinical trials
Havana, Apr 26 (Prensa Latina) Abdala, Cuba s vaccine candidate against Covid-19, will conclude this week the administration of the third dose to all volunteers as part of the 3rd phase of clinical trials, it was announced on Monday. We aim at celebrating International Health Workers Day on May 1 by applying those last doses to all the volunteers included, Verena Mucio assured, director of Clinical Research at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), leader of this project.
The specialist recalled that on April 19, the last two weeks of the application of the third dose to all the volunteers began, of which 21,909 have already been vaccinated as part of the process.
Cuba says it s betting it safe with its own Covid vaccine msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.