Venezuela to produce Cuban vaccine Abdala | Society

Venezuela will manufacture the Cuban-born Abdala vaccine against covid-19 in a state laboratory in Caracas, still in the second phase of clinical trials, in cooperation with the government of Havana. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez also announced this week that the country has finally managed to access the advance required by the Covax mechanism, backed by the World Health Organization, with the aim of acquiring around 11 million doses corresponding to 20% of the vaccine that Venezuela needs to immunize its population. The remaining $ 60 million needed for the rest of the vaccines is guaranteed, according to executive spokesperson Nicolás Maduro.

“We were accompanied by the Cuban delegation to this factory to verify that all the conditions are met for the production of the Abdala vaccine in our country”, said Rodríguez in a television program of Espromed Bio, the Venezuelan national laboratory of biological drugs. . and vaccine production, without specifying an exact date or the monthly doses they hope to develop. Venezuela’s Health Minister Carlos Alvarado said a binational commission has discussed options to make “adjustments in the plant” to guide the planned work.

Rodríguez and Alvarado praised the link between Cuba and Venezuela as an example on the international scene and said that the establishment of this pact makes possible the “mass” manufacture of vaccines against the covid. “Venezuela is looking for all possible alternatives to access vaccines, and this is one of the most important options because of the brotherly relationship we have with Cuba,” said Alvarado. The minister assured that the agreements to bring Sputnik V, from Russia, and Sinopharm, from China, are still in force.

The announcements come at a time when concern is growing in the South American country over the delay in the publication of an official vaccination plan, which had been promised for the month of April. The Maduro government has vetoed the entry of the AstraZeneca vaccine while holding international sanctions and opposition leader Juan Guaidó responsible for blocking resources for vaccination. Instead, he opted for Cuba’s experimental vaccines: Sovereign 02 and Abdala. The second wave of the pandemic in the country has collapsed health centers. Official figures show more than 172,000 cases and more than 1,700 deaths, although virtually all sources agree that underreporting is at least four times higher. Venezuela has so far acquired only 750,000 vaccines. The doses were applied to Maduro, the government’s political-military elite and medical personnel.

The resources to finance the Covax mechanism were the result of a complex process of negotiations between a mixed team made up of representatives of Maduro and Guaidó, which enabled the release of certain national funds frozen in the framework of international sanctions against the regime. . chavista. However, the Maduro government did not want to appear publicly to agree on anything with its enemies and continued to hold the Venezuelan opposition and the United States responsible for the delay in vaccines and the serious financial insolvency. from the country.

Venezuela’s National Academy of Medicine warned in March that the country “suffers from a serious epidemic of covid-19 and, instead of participating in testing of experimental products with unknown characteristics, it should prioritize the disease. ‘provision in the country of vaccines of recognized safety. and efficacy. “The Abdala is one of the four vaccination projects carried out by the Cuban government. The third phase to obtain its patent, which would consolidate the clinical studies that support its effectiveness , would begin now that the agreements with Venezuela have been formalized.

“There is no study published in any of its phases in serious journals, even if the WHO recently accepted it as a prototype of a vaccine against the covid”, evaluates Amadeo Leyba, surgeon specializing in pediatrics and health public. “The Abdala vaccine is a recombinant protein (brewer’s yeast) and uses tetanus toxoid as a vector. I doubt that with the public health chaos right now in Venezuela, vaccines can be mass-produced. We must not generate expectations that will not be met, ”he says.

The Espromed Bio laboratory was created in 2014, already at the time of Maduro, as a successor to the vaccine production plant attached to the National Institute of Hygiene. Its installed capacity is 120 million doses per year.

“The Espromed Bio facilities were once a research center, not so much for viruses, but for bacterial processes, with more or less artisanal production of vaccines”, explains Carlos Walter, specialist doctor at the Center for Studies for Development. from the Central University of Venezuela and Minister of Health in the 1990s. “Chávez has invested a lot of resources in this institute, with advice and a Cuban presence,” he concedes, expressing his reservations about the state current of Empromed-bio laboratories in the midst of the general bankruptcy of public administration in force in the Maduro years.

Leyba predicts that the government will move forward with the Cuban vaccine and do everything possible to match supplies from Russia and China to ideologically orient its conduct on this issue. “The Cuban vaccine will be imposed, in this type of model, political fanaticism prevails over reason,” he said. “That businessmen forget that they will allow them to bring vaccines, as has been commented. For these leaders, vaccines will become a power and in the case of Cuba, solidarity as a model ”.

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