Countries, including India, Pakistan, Iran, Vietnam and neighboring Venezuela, are already interested in importing the Cuban-developed Soberana-2 vaccine against COVID-19, the Finlay Institute said, although the jab is still undergoing clinical trials .
The Finlay Institute of Cuba is preparing this year to produce 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, citing demand from other developing countries as well as nationally.
“We are reorganizing our production capacity because we really have a lot of demand for the vaccine and we need to prepare,” Vicente Vérez, director of the institute, told reporters on Wednesday during a tour of the laboratory.
Vérez said other countries interested in the Soberana 02 vaccine include South American ally Venezuela, Vietnam, Iran, India and Pakistan.
The Finlay Vaccines Institute has two vaccine candidates under development, Soberana (“Sovereign”) 01 and Soberana 02. The second is more advanced and is currently in Phase II trials, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Other Cuban biotechnology laboratories are working on two more vaccines, Abdala and Mambisa.
Several Phase III vaccines have been approved for ’emergencies’ and are being given as part of mass programs, including those developed by the German Pfizer BioNTech, the American Moderna and the British AstraZeneca.
Cuba, with a population of about 11.5 million, needs only a fraction of the 100 million figure for its domestic needs.
The second phase of Soberana 02’s Phase II trials began this week in a polyclinic – a medical center – in the capital Havana, with about 900 subjects. The previous phase involved about 100 people.
But Vérez added that 150,000 people across the island will be vaccinated in the coming weeks, while trials of Soberana 02 in children will begin next month.
Volunteers reported no side effects after getting a jab – contrary to the many reports of serious side reactions to Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine from around the world. Vérez emphasized that Soberana-2 does not contain a live virus like many other vaccines, but antigenic proteins of dead viral particles.
“Cuba’s strategy to commercialize the vaccine has a combination of humanity and an impact on the health and need of our system to sustain the production of vaccine and medicine for the country,” Vérez said.
“We are not a multinational country where yield is the main reason,” he added. “We work the other way around; creating more health and returning is a consequence; it will never be the priority.”
As many countries compete to produce a coronavirus vaccine and end the pandemic, and national drug regulators acting as gatekeepers develop a situation of parallel markets. Western and Western countries place orders for the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca jabs, while many developing countries, including Venezuela and Argentina, buy the Sputnik V vaccine from the Russian Gamaleya Institute or the Chinese company Sinofac’s product. Sinopharm.
Those markets overlap here and there. Brazil imports Sputnik-V and Sinovac as well as Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The South African Ministry of Health says it is negotiating with Gamaleya an Sinopharm, but so far has only placed orders with European manufacturers. Brazil imports vaccines from different countries, although President Jair Bolsonaro has rejected a clause in the Pfizer contract that absolves him of responsibility for any harm suffered by patients.
While Sputnik-V and Sinovac have yet to be considered by Western regulators, the French newspaper Le monde reports that political pressure has been put on the European Medicines Agency to quickly detect the Pfizer vaccine in the EU. Since the UK approved the AstraZeneca vaccine that is easier to store, in addition to the Pfizer sting, the UK National Health Service has vaccinated almost four times as many people as Germany and almost five times as many as France.
Cuba registered 19,122 Covid-19 infections and 180 deaths since the pandemic hit the island last March.