This is a world first. Cuba launched, Friday, September 3, a national vaccination campaign against the coronavirus of children and adolescents aged two to 18 years. A condition set by the Communist government for the reopening of schools.
Other countries like China and Venezuela have announced plans to vaccinate young children as well, but none have yet taken the plunge.
This campaign, carried out with the Cuban vaccines Abdala and Soberana 2, initially concerns adolescents aged 12 and over, before being extended to children aged two to 11 from September 15.
In the evening, the Medicines Regulatory Agency (Cecmed) announced that it had given authorization for the emergency use of the Soberana 2 vaccine.
“Me, I always wanted to be vaccinated” against Covid-19, testifies to Agence France-Presse (AFP) Laura Lantigua, 17, came to receive the first of three injections planned at Saul Delgado high school, in the Vedado district, in Havana. A few days ago, his establishment warned the students via social networks: “They told us the hours and the center where we were to go. “
Back to school on TV
On site, doctors “Took our blood pressure and temperature, they auscultated us and we were vaccinated”, then, it took “Wait an hour, to see if we had a reaction”. Corn ” I feel good “, she assures. “It’s really a good experience”, adds, at his side, Ronald Martinez, who has just turned 18: “We feel that by being vaccinated, we can have a new social life, find the relationships we lost almost two years ago. “
The goal, above all, is for children to be able to return to class: schools across the country have been closed since March 2020 and only reopened briefly, for a few weeks, at the end of the year, before closing again in January. Schoolchildren and students must since follow the lessons via television, and will have to do it again from Monday, the day of the return to Cuba.
The Cuban government has decided that the class will not resume before having vaccinated all the children in the country. Once the campaign is over, he plans to reopen establishments in a phased manner, in October and November. The island of 11.2 million inhabitants has 672,599 cases of Covid-19, including 5,538 deaths. According to official figures from the beginning of August, 95,100 Cuban miners have contracted the disease since the start of the pandemic and seven have died from it.
The composition of Cuban vaccines, which are not recognized by the WHO, is based on a recombinant protein, a technique identical to that used by the American company Novavax.