Cuba launched a national coronavirus vaccination campaign on Friday (September 3) for children and adolescents aged two to 18, a condition set by the Communist government before reopening schools.
If other countries such as China and Venezuela have announced their intention to also vaccinate children, Cuba, faced with an increase in cases which is rocking its health system, is the first to do so.
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This campaign, carried out with Cuban vaccines Abdala and Soberana, initially concerns adolescents aged 12 and over, before being extended to children aged two to 11 from September 15. "
I have always wanted to be vaccinated
" against Covid-19, testifies to AFP Laura Lantigua, 17, who came to receive the first of three injections planned at Saul Delgado high school, in the Vedado district, in La Havana.
A few days ago, his establishment warned the students via social networks: “
they told us the hours and the center where we were to go
”.
On the spot, doctors "
measured us the tension and the temperature, they auscultated us and then we were vaccinated
", then it was necessary "to
wait an hour, to see if we had a reaction
".
But "
I feel good,
" she says.
672,599 cases including 5,538 deaths
"
It's really a good experience
", adds, at his side, Ronald Martinez, who has just turned 18: "
we feel that by being vaccinated, we can have a new social life, find the relationships that 'we lost almost two years ago
'. And back to school, too: schools across the country have been closed since March 2020 and only reopened briefly, for a few weeks, at the end of the year, before closing again in January.
Schoolchildren and students must since follow the lessons via television, and will have to do it again from Monday, the day of the return to Cuba.
The Cuban government has in fact decided that schools will not reopen before having vaccinated all the country's children: once the campaign is over, it plans to reopen the establishments in a phased manner, in October and November.
The island of 11.2 million inhabitants has accumulated 672,599 cases, including 5,538 deaths.
By early August, 95,100 Cuban minors had contracted the Covid and seven died from it.
The composition of Cuban vaccines, which are not recognized by the WHO, is based on a recombinant protein, the same technique used by the American company Novavax.
