Venezuelan regime to start applying Cuban Abdala vaccine in July, which has not completed trials or has not been approved

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro said Thursday that his regime intends to start vaccinating the Venezuelan population in July with doses of Abdala, the Cuban vaccine against COVID-19 that has not been evaluated or cleared by the authorities. international regulators and which has not yet been tested.

“We are working with the Chinese vaccine, with the Russian vaccine and the experiments in Venezuela of the two Cuban vaccines, Soberana 2 and Abdala, now start in April, with the idea that in July we will already be massively vaccinating with Abdala”said the chavist leader.

“And we are looking for other interesting, safe, proven and scientifically approved by the health authorities of Venezuela as it should “he added.

Last Sunday, Maduro announced that Venezuela to receive 60,000 doses from Cuban vaccine projects Soberana 02 and Abdala in the first week of April, which the country will use to participate in the final phase of clinical trials of potential inoculants.

En otra alocución televisada, informó that 30,000 unidades de cada una de estas vacunas llegarán al país para ser aplicadas en la tercera y última fase de ensayos, tal como ocurrió con la rusa Sputnik V, que escogió a Venezuela como el primer paraís his studies.

The decision was widely criticized by Venezuelan health organizations. That same Thursday, the Venezuelan National Bioethics Center (CENABI) warned of the “great risks” faced by those participating in Cuban vaccine testing against the coronavirus.

In a statement, he indicated that he supported the statement of the National Academy of Medicine – published on March 22 – in which he questioned “the experimental application to our population of the two” vaccine candidates “.

“The technological infrastructure of this country is currently obsolete and there is no reliable information on the results of test phases 1 and 2, which demonstrate the immunogenic capacity of the product. Phase 3, which is intended to be integrated in our country, aims to assess the efficacy and safety of the product and involves the administration of a placebo (an inert substitute for the “ candidate vaccine ”) in approximately half of the people included in the study. », Affirms CENABI.

The entity in turn declared that “the rebound of the COVID-19 disease in a population in complex humanitarian emergencies, does not allow testing of products that do not have a solid scientific basis, as is the case with these “vaccine candidates”, carvativir, chlorine dioxide and other products imposed by government authorities ”.

The Academy of Medicine, meanwhile, said that “what little is known” comes from the same Cuban regime and that the methodology used is “old” and “has not been proven in the case of COVID- 19 “.

Sovereign 02 and Abdala, says Maduro, are the “ALBA” vaccines, the group of countries created by the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and which is made up of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and other American countries.

“Abdala”, head of the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), received approval from the Cuban National Control Center for Drugs, Equipment and Medical Devices (CECMED) to launch the phase 3 test, which will take place in the capitals of three eastern provinces of the island: Santiago, Guantánamo and Granma.

Cuba already has another potential vaccine in this final phase, “Sovereign 02”, which at the beginning of this month began to be administered in Havana to 44,010 volunteers between the ages of 19 and 80 and which will also be tested in Iran, where they will be tested. received 100,000 doses of the formula.

In contrast, the regime reiterated on Wednesday that it would not allow AstraZeneca vaccines in the country – which has been approved by several regulatory agencies around the world and is already administered in many countries – whose arrival has been managed. by the Leader of the Opposition. Juan Guaidó via the COVAX Mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Delcy Rodríguez, vice president of Maduro, insisted during a conference in Miraflores Palace that “on March 15, we met with representatives of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). where we inform that Venezuela has not approved the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine ”. “We don’t need the documents,” he said.

With information from EFE

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