The Cuban Health authorities assured this Wednesday that this month they will begin to apply a booster dose of the anti-covid vaccines approved by the Center for State Control of Medicines (Cecmed). It will be the fourth injection for those who have completed the Sovereign 02 or Abdala regimen.
As explained by Rolando Pérez Rodríguez, director of Scientific Policy of the state BioCubaFarma, at the Round Table, it is appropriate to “reactivate the immune response” in subunit vaccines such as Cuban ones when “the antibody response begins to decline.”
And when does that happen? The long interventions in the television program are confusing, but Pérez Rodríguez asserts at one point: “The data obtained to date, in terms of the duration of the immune response with Cuban vaccines, show antibody titers up to eight months after completed the vaccination schedule. There is evidence of a decrease in this response over time. “
In addition, the doctor pointed out that there is “preliminary evidence of an increase in the immune response after a booster dose with Abdala, Mambisa, Soberana Plus and Soberana 01, both in convalescents and in vaccinated, even with vaccines based on other technological platforms, which which gives us the basis for requesting authorization from Cecmed “.
Before these statements, the official did offer the latest data on the effectiveness of anti-covid drugs, but in no case of Cubans. “For the vaccines approved by the FDA, the United States regulatory agency, and the EMA, the European regulatory agency, it has been possible to verify a decrease in the effectiveness of the vaccines after six months of their administration,” he says, by For example, and about the effectiveness of Pfizer / BioNTech: “In the case of the Delta variant, it decreased from 93% in the first month to 53% after four months.”
“In future spaces we will give precise details that will clarify the doubts that the population may have”
The process to apply the reinforcement will be done, said María Elena Soto Entenza, head of the Department of Primary Health Care of the Ministry of Public Health, in a phased manner. “In future spaces we will give precise details that will clarify the doubts that the population may have,” he said, although they reported that the priority – ahead of “the population over 60 years of age, pregnant women, patients with kidney failure, cancer and other comorbidities” – They will be Health and BioCubaFarma workers, Tourism and Customs employees, transporters, teachers and “combatants” from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of the Armed Forces.
The guests in the state television space, who made the announcement in the face of the total reopening of the borders, on November 15, took the opportunity to collect with pomp the route of Cuban anti-covid vaccines, since President Miguel Díaz-Canel gave the order to develop a national drug. “Although there are vaccines from other countries, we need ours, to have sovereignty,” recalled Eulogio Pimentel Vázquez, vice president of BioCubaFarma, which Miguel Díaz-Canel said on May 19, 2020.
Cuba does not integrate the Covax mechanism created by the World Health Organization (WHO) for low- and middle-income countries to access vaccines, nor did it buy them on the international market.
The WHO, for its part, has not yet approved the emergency use of Soberana or Abdala. The last drug to enter the agency’s list this Wednesday was the Indian vaccine Covaxin.
The only study in a scientific journal – that is, peer-reviewed – on a Cuban vaccine was published in The Lancet last September on the Soberana Plus antidote for convalescents. Although it collected the results of the Phase 1 trial, which therefore involved a very small sample, the conclusion was favorable: “A single dose of Finlay-FR-1A vaccine against Sars-CoV-2 effectively boosted natural immunity. pre-existing, with an excellent safety profile “.
On the other hand, infections and deaths from covid-19 have drastically decreased in Cuba, a few months after reaching its maximum peak of infections, in summer. The latest official data, published this Thursday, show 592 new positives and only two deaths. In almost two years of pandemic, the Island accumulates a total of 954,342 cases and 8,252 deaths.
Like all statistics produced by the Cuban Government, these data have not been contrasted with independent sources and raise many doubts.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14ymedio He is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our journal. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
