Cuba has approved the emergency use of its Soberana Plus vaccine for children over two years old convalescing from Covid-19, the country's drug regulatory authority (Cecmed) said on Tuesday, December 7, while vaccination recall started this week in Havana.
Soberana Plus has been approved for
"the pediatric population recovering from Covid-19 two months or more after their medical discharge,"
Cecmed said in a statement on his website, in which he specifies that
"the vaccine can be administered to all convalescents from the age of two ”
.
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Cecmed said the approval of Soberana Plus for convalescent minors is based on
"partial results of a phase I / II clinical trial"
in children and adolescents who have contracted the coronavirus,
"which have shown that the 'single dose administration is safe, and has provided evidence of potential benefits'
in protecting against reinfection with the virus.
This same vaccine was approved last September for convalescent adults over 19 years of age.
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Meanwhile, the booster vaccination started this week in four municipalities in Havana and will be rolled out in stages across the country, the
Granma
newspaper reported on
Monday.
Vaccination of children aged 2 to 18 began in September with the Soberana O2 and Abdala vaccines, with the goal of getting students back to school in November with three doses.
According to information from the Ministry of Health, as of Tuesday, a total of 9.2 million people had completed their vaccination program comprising three doses, on the island of 11.2 million inhabitants.
Although vaccines developed and produced in Cuba have yet to be recognized by the WHO, the island has managed to control and overcome the most critical moment of the pandemic between July and September.
