is the first in Latin America to reach the last stage

“It is incredible that a small country like Cuba, an island poor in material resources, but very rich in human resources, has reached this stage,” said Dr Vicente Vérez, director of the Finlay Vaccine Institute, during ‘a press conference.

“Our Sovereign, Latin America’s first Phase III vaccine!” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on Twitter.

Recruitment of the 44,000 volunteers, aged 19 to 80, who will participate in the study has already started, and the vaccination process should begin next week, according to the IFV.

This phase will “last for about three months, after the administration of the last dose,” said the deputy director of the Institute, Yury Valdés.

The official said the group of volunteers was divided into three for the study. Some will receive two doses of Sovereign 2 28 days apart, others will receive two plus an extra dose to boost immunity, and the third will receive a placebo.

But even before this phase is over, “The partial results of these trials can be used to progress in other categories, such as emergency use authorization” vaccine, as has happened with others around the world, he added.

If Soberana 2 gets final clearance, it will become the first COVID-19 vaccine designed and produced in Latin America.

The communist country, which has set itself the goal of vaccinating its entire population this year, it remains one of the least affected by the coronavirus in the region, with 53,308 infections and 336 deaths, out of a population of 11.2 million.

“We are preparing to produce between a million and two million per month” in each of the two production centers “, and this should allow us to vaccinate the country in about six months”, explained Eduardo Ojito, general manager of the Engineering Center. molecular. .

Ojito said that “the country needs 30 million doses”, if it ultimately decides to apply three, and that it “is trying to put in place a system that goes to around 5-10 million doses per month”.

Under the United States embargo since 1962, Cuba began to develop its own vaccines in the 1980s., by discovering in particular the first antigen against type B meningococcus.

Currently, 80% of the vaccines included in its vaccination program are manufactured on the island.

Based on this experience, Cuban scientists are developing four candidates for coronavirus vaccines: Soberana 1 (currently in phase 2), Soberana 2, Abdala (pending the green light to move to phase three) and Mambisa (in phase 1).

The first three are given by injection and the fourth by a nasal spray. Unlike other vaccines on the market, none of the four need to be stored in extremely cold conditions.

Experts on the island are also working on a fifth candidate, Sovereign +, based on a reformulation of Sovereign 1 and aimed at recovering patients from the disease.

All Cuban vaccines are recombinant proteins, the same technique used by the American biotechnology company Novavax.

The coronavirus has spikes (viral proteins) on its surface to come into contact with and infect cells. These proteins can be replicated and then presented to the immune system to make it react.