HAVANA鈥擟uba will administer experimental COVID-19 shots to nearly the entire population of the capital Havana by May as health authorities carry out massive interventional studies and late stage trials, officials said on Tuesday.
Cuba, which has a long history of developing and exporting vaccines, this month began late phase trials of two of its five experimental shots, Soberana 2 and Abdala, which will be Latin America鈥檚 first homegrown COVID-19 vaccines if they prove successful.
Ileana Morales, the health ministry鈥檚 director of science and technological innovation, said on a round-table broadcast on state television that authorities would conduct an intervention study in 1.7 million people in Havana by May.
Epicenter
That comes on top of one it has already started for 150,000 front-line workers in the city, which is estimated to have 2.1 million inhabitants.
Cuba鈥檚 capital is at the center of its worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic, registering 292 cases per 100,000 inhabitants compared with a nationwide average of 103.5, Deputy Health Minister Carilda Pe帽a said.
Authorities could seek approval for emergency use of Abdala and Soberana 2, which both target the spike protein of the novel coronavirus, in June, Morales said.
鈥淲ith the approval of emergency use鈥� we would be on track to a more massive vaccination of the population,鈥� Morales said.
That mass vaccination would start with the most at-risk groups, including the over-60 and health-care workers. By August, 6 million people should have received a vaccine, with all Cuba鈥檚 11 million inhabitants vaccinated by year-end, Morales said.
Cuba is registering 600 to 1,000 new cases a day, well above the scores or a handful per day for most of last year. Since the pandemic started, the country has reported 68,250 cases and 401 deaths, one of the lowest rates in the world per capita.
Self-sufficiency
Government critics have said Cuba should have purchased approved vaccines from abroad to kick off its immunization campaign while it completed trials on its homegrown vaccines.
The country developed a large biotech sector partly in order to become self-sufficient in the face of a crippling US trade embargo. Venezuela and Iran, which also face US sanctions, say they will also trial the Cuban COVID-19 vaccines, which have attracted the interest of other countries like Mexico and Jamaica.