Cuba is preparing to play in the big leagues. Havana must in fact ask the World Health Organization (WHO) at the beginning of March for “prequalification” two of its vaccines against Covid-19, Abdala and Soberana 02, to allow their international recognition, the director of the state group BioCubaFarma said on Tuesday.
“We plan to send the file to the WHO in the first weeks of March”, said Eduardo Martinez, whose group created and manufactures Abdala. Cuba has developed a total of three vaccines against Covid-19, 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 they would come and carry out the inspection to award us prequalification once the complex was operational”said Mr. Martinez.
Funding problems
” We think that [les vaccins cubains] will be recognized without any problem. We have the experience and we have already had other vaccines [contre d’autres maladies] who have gone through this prequalification process”, 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. It 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 that the first tests at the Mariel complex have respected “quality parameters” requested but added that the company was facing funding problems. “We managed to export vaccines and medicines at the end of last year and we are struggling to be paid in the face of the banks’ refusal to work with us” due to the US embargo, which has delayed the settlement of raw materials needed by the Cuban pharmaceutical industry.
Only ten vaccines against Covid-19 are today formally approved for emergency use by the WHO, in addition to around twenty formulations authorized locally in several countries.