Cuba, which to date had deployed exclusively its homegrown COVID-19 vaccines, yesterday started also using the Sinopharm vaccine of its communist-run ally China in its bid to battle one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the world.
Health authorities would apply two doses of Sinopharm combined with a Cuban booster in the central province of Cienfuegos from yesterday, Vicente Verez, the head of the Cuban Finlay Vaccine Institute, was cited as saying by the provincial state-run media 5deSeptiembre.
The efficacy of the vaccine combo is above 90 percent, 5deSeptiembre said, without detailing where the data came from or whether Cuba’s drug regulator had authorized the use of the Chinese vaccine.
Photo: AFP
The WHO gave emergency approval to the Sinopharm shot in May.
Authorities who had said earlier this month that they would be able to produce enough vaccines for all of Cuba by next month did not explain why they were choosing to deploy a foreign one now.
“It seems obvious the decision to apply Sinopharm in Cienfuegos is associated to the limited availability of Cuban vaccines and the urgency caused by the explosion of cases,” Brazil-based Cuban virologist Amilcar Perez Riverol said.
The Cuban Ministry of Health had said in May that the plan was to have vaccinated 70 percent of the population by this month, but had so far only reached about 30 percent, Perez Riverol said on Facebook.
Cuba has one of the highest COVID-19 caseloads in the world, which is overwhelming its vaunted healthcare system.
The outbreak comes amid a shortage of basic goods, including medicine, that has fueled anger at the Cuban government, leading to unprecedented nationwide protests last month.
Cuban authorities, which blame the economic crisis largely on a tightening of US sanctions, have hailed donations of medical gear and food since the protests from allies like China, although it was unclear if the vaccines were donated or bought.
Government critics had long urged it to acquire foreign vaccines rather than simply relying on homegrown ones, accusing it of placing its desire for prestige and good publicity over health concerns.
Authorities said they preferred to focus scant resources on vaccine development and production than imports.
US President Joe Biden last month said the US was prepared to send vaccines to Cuba if it was assured an international organization would administer them.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel retorted that if the US cared about the island’s humanitarian situation, it would lift the sanctions it accuses among other things of slowing down production of its homegrown vaccines.
The country has developed an unusually large biotech sector for a country its size, partly in a bid for sovereignty given the decades-old crippling US trade embargo.
It is the only Latin American country to have completed the development of two COVID-19 vaccines, Soberana 2 and Abdala, which have elicited interest from nations worldwide from Jamaica and Mexico to Vietnam and Argentina.
It says the three-shot vaccines both have efficacy of more than 90 percent, although the data have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals.
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