Cuba clears the covid vaccine Abdala | It is the first developed in Latin America to be approved

The drug regulator of Cuba authorized this Friday the emergency use of the Abdala vaccine against the coronavirus, developed on the island. It is the first in Latin America to receive approval for its use on a large scale. The approval comes almost simultaneously with the announcement that Sovereign 02, another Cuban development vaccine, is 91.2% effective.

The Abdala has an efficiency of 92.28%, according to local studies, and it is already administered among Cubans. It was exported to Venezuela where it will also be produced and several countries in the region have expressed interest in acquiring it, including Argentina.

The State Control Center for Drugs, Equipment and Medical Devices (Cecmed) decided to allow the inoculant “once it has been confirmed that meets the requirements and parameters required in terms of quality, safety and efficiency“he said in a statement.

The regulatory body explained that to give the approval, a “rigorous evaluation process” of the drug was carried out, the factories involved in its production were visited and the data obtained at different stages of the clinical trial, including the current phase III, have studied.

In this sense, he stressed that the vaccinator “has demonstrated efficacy in the prevention of symptomatic forms of the disease of 92.28%, as well as an adequate safety profile, supported by the number of doses applied in the clinical trials carried out “.

Vaccination with Abdala and Soberana 02

Abdala and Soberana 02 are administered on a massive scale on the island in a model called health intervention, with volunteers from groups at risk, such as health workers, and in the territories where the transmission of the virus is the most important in provinces like Havana, Santiago de Cuba or Matanzas.

According to data released on Tuesday, about 6.8 million Cubans had received at least one dose of Abdala or Soberana 02, and 1.6 million had already received all three doses of the vaccine.

Cuba expects to vaccinate 70% of its population in August and 100% by the end of the year and become the first country in the world to immunize its entire population with its own vaccines.

These two inoculants are the only phase III candidates developed in Latin America and have already aroused the interest of several countries in the region, including Argentina.

In this context, the Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti, and the presidential adviser Cecilia Nicolini, went to Havana at the end of May to learn about advances in the development of vaccines.

In total, there are five drugs under study on the island (the others are Soberana 01, Soberana Plus and Mambisa), plus a sixth under study with Chinese scientists, called Pan-Corona, which aims to be a new generation vaccine that is more effective against different strains of SARS-CoV-2.