(AFP)\u2014 Cuba said Wednesday it would seek World Health Organisation approval for two home-grown coronavirus vaccines it hopes to commercialise widely.<\/p>\n
A vetting process will start Thursday with WHO experts examining the nation\u2019s Abdala and Soberana 02 jabs, said Rolando Perez of state pharma group BioCubaFarma.<\/p>\n
Perez said the experts would examine the vaccines\u2019 \u201csafety, immunogenicity (the ability of a vaccine to provoke an immune response) and efficacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The WHO\u2019s representative in Cuba, Jose Moya, told AFP there would be \u201ca first virtual meeting\u201d Thursday between experts in Havana, Geneva and Washington.<\/p>\n
Cuba has been using domestically-produced vaccines in its COVID-19 inoculation campaign, including for children.<\/p>\n
The vaccines, the first developed in Latin America, have yet to undergo international, scientific peer review.<\/p>\n
They are based on recombinant protein technology \u2014 the same used by the United States\u2019 Novavax and France\u2019s Sanofi jabs.<\/p>\n
Unlike many other shots in use, recombinant vaccines do not require extreme refrigeration.<\/p>\n
Perez said Cuba\u2019s ability to sell its vaccines to other countries does not depend on WHO approval, as this is a decision for national health authorities.<\/p>\n
But it would \u201cfacilitate (the vaccines\u2019) entry into the market in other nations, once the island\u2019s needs are covered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several countries including Argentina and Mexico have shown interest in acquiring the Cuban jabs, Venezuela has already signed a purchase contract, and Iran is producing Soberana 02 on home soil.<\/p>\n
Under American sanctions since 1962, communist Cuba has a long tradition of making its own vaccines, dating back to the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Nearly 80 percent of its inoculations are produced locally.<\/p>\n
Cuban scientists say the Abdala and Soberana 02 jabs have been shown to be more than 90 percent effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n
The island of 11.2 million people has fully vaccinated about 38.5 percent of its population, also using China\u2019s Sinopharm inoculation.<\/p>\n
The country has registered 768,497 COVID cases and 6,523 deaths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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A vetting process will start Thursday with WHO experts examining the nation\u2019s Abdala and [...]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9406,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9403\/revisions\/9406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drealfmgrenada.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}