The newspaper cites statements by Eduardo Martínez Díaz, director of BioCubaFarma, manufacturer of the immunologist, who assures that the vaccines have proven to be very safe, since to date they have been applied to 88 percent of the population.
Cuba will request the prequalification of its Abdala vaccine from the WHO in March, in order to obtain international recognition, the senior executive reported.
We think that at the beginning of March, within two or three weeks, we will already be sending the dossier, informed Martínez during a call to the International Congress “Bio Habana 2022”, from April 25 to 29 with more than a hundred foreign scientists and businessmen. .
Milenio recalls that Cuba manufactures and applies five vaccines and vaccine candidates against Covid-19, but Abdala and Soberanas are the ones that have had the greatest national use and in other countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Vietnam.
Biofarma announced to the WHO that the place of production of the vaccines would change from the current plants to a new complex built in Mariel, 50 kilometers west of Havana, inaugurated in December.
“They answered yes, that we should send the dossier and when the plant was already available and in operation, they would come to carry out the inspection to grant prequalification,” added the Cuban executive.
Martínez stressed that we think they will be recognized without any problems, we have experience, there are other vaccines of ours (for other diseases) that have passed this prequalification process.
He considered that biologicals have proven to be very safe, since to date they have been applied to 88 percent of the population, controlling the pandemic and the number of deaths.
The newspaper endorses the effectiveness of the island’s health system with the fact that one million 62 thousand 154 Cubans infected with Covd-19 have died just 8 thousand 476 to date, one of the lowest rates in the world.
Martínez said that the first tests in the Mariel Complex met the quality parameters, but admitted that they have had financing and supply problems throughout the Cuban pharmaceutical industry.
We managed to export vaccines and a group of medicines at the end of last year and we are having difficulties to be able to collect due to the refusal of the banks to work with us, due to the blockade of the United States, he declared.
In addition, he explained that this situation has deprived them of financing to honor payments for raw materials, to which is added the international trade problems caused by the pandemic.
msm/lma
