The Cuban Medicines Regulatory Authority (Cecmed) on Thursday, September 23, gave the authorization for the emergency use of its locally developed Soberana Plus vaccine for convalescents from Covid-19 aged 19 and over.
This vaccine will be administered, in a single dose, to patients recovered from the disease, "two months or more after their recovery," said Cecmed in a statement.
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The decision is made because
"it has been shown that
(this vaccine)
meets the requirements of quality, safety and immunogenicity for this population group"
, he added,
"with beneficial elements in terms of immunology against the potential risk of reinfection by new, more transmissible variants of the virus ”
.
Soberana Plus had already been approved by Cecmed as a third dose of reinforcement after the first two doses of Soberana 2, another Cuban vaccine also authorized on the island.
A third local vaccine, Abdala, has also received the green light from the drug regulatory authority.
Not recognized by the WHO, these vaccines are based on a recombinant protein, the same technique on which the American Novavax and the French Sanofi are working.
They are, according to Cuban scientists, more than 90% effective in preventing the onset of the disease with symptoms.
Cuba began last week the first contacts with WHO experts to obtain recognition for its anti-Covid vaccines, already purchased by Venezuela and Vietnam, and in production in Iran.
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As of Tuesday, the country had already fully vaccinated 42.2% of its population with its own vaccines.
He also launched a unique campaign in the world to vaccinate children from the age of two, a condition set by the government for the reopening of schools in November.
Subject to an American embargo since 1962, Cuba began to design its own vaccines in the 1980s, notably discovering the first vaccine against meningitis B, and today nearly 80% of the vaccines in its immunization program are produced locally. .