By Voon Miaw Ping
KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 (NNN-Bernama) — “Cuba has always been willing to collaborate with its Malaysian counterparts in developing new products and medications, and that includes COVID-19 vaccines”, its Ambassador to Malaysia Florentino Batista-González said.
Two of Cuba’s homegrown coronavirus vaccines – Soberana 2 and Abdala – currently used to inoculate its population, have proven their efficacy, he said.
The Caribbean island state which capitalised on its advanced biotechnology and pharmaceutical technology has opted not to import foreign coronavirus vaccines but rather to rely on its own so far.
“Results are clear already, cases have dropped by 50 per cent in the areas undergoing the vaccination, and critical patients and deaths are also on steep decline,” he said in an interview with Bernama.
Cuba had on Monday said the three-shot Abdala vaccine in its last-stage clinical trial had proved to be 92.28 per cent effective against the deadly virus, while Soberana was also proven to be 62 per cent effective.
Apart from Soberana 2 and Abdala, there are also three other vaccine candidates – Soberana 01, Soberana Plus and Mambisa.
The first two, Batista-Gonzalez said, are being used in treating convalescent patients, and in combination with other vaccines as boosters of immune response, or extending the period of protection without the need of a new cycle of vaccination.
He added that Mambisa, meanwhile is a nasal vaccine, unique of its type according to vaccinestracker.org, and received permission from the regulatory body in Cuba to undergo clinical trials.
Preliminary results of Mambisa have shown minimal adverse effects, he added.
Batista-Gonzalez said as of June 17, more than five million Cubans had received at least one dose of the vaccines and by August, it is expected that more than eight million people would have been fully vaccinated.
Cuba has a population of about 11 million people.
And although it is currently facing a third wave with daily new cases averaging over 1,000 cases, deaths due to COVID-19 in Cuba remains one of the lowest per infected population.
“That can be credited to an exceptional community based health care system and to a medical intervention protocol which includes advance biotech developed medicines that proved to be a major asset in reducing the mortality rates of infected patients,” he said.
According to data by worldometers.info, Cuba recorded a total 169,365 COVID-19 cases and 1,170 deaths as of June 22.
Some 159,775 patients have also recovered from the virus.
— NNN-BERNAMA