HAVANA, Jan 24 (NNN-Prensa Latina) — The first clinical studies of the application of Cuba’s first nasal vaccine candidate, named Mambisa, to patients convalescing from Covid-19 and as a booster are ongoing.
The drug was created by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) and demonstrates safety and immunogenicity in its phase I/II adaptive, randomized, parallel group development in 120 adult volunteers, as tweeted by the Center itself.
Three nasal administration drugs were compared during the first stage, two of them in the form of spray, and another in the form of drops, according to the scientific research center.
Mambisa proved safe, while the adverse events that were described were mostly mild, with no serious side effects, the CIGB assured, based on the data disclosed in the public registry of clinical trials.
The vaccine candidate induced an anti-RBD response more than four times the initial level in all groups.
It also increased the inhibitory capacity against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus to more than 20 percent, at the systemic level and in the nasal mucosa.
Cuba achieved and has been applying since 2021 the Abdala vaccine, also developed by the CIGB, and the first vaccine to be created and produced in Latin America, with a proven efficacy of 92.28 percent, at the level of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s.
Cuba has fully vaccinated 87.6 percent of its population against Covid-19 and has administered a booster shot to 4,545,231 people.
In all, it has administered 33,422,531 shots of domestic vaccines Soberana 02, Soberana Plus and Abdala, and 10,544,254 Cubans (of 11 million) have received at least one dose, according to the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP, in Spanish).
Some 9,334,329 people have received a second dose, and 8,998,689 have been administered a third one, according to the Jan.20 (Thursday) MINSAP update. Cuba, which launched its immunization campaign in May, 2021, quickly moved forward with its realization, and before the end of 2021, it had been ranked first in the world regarding the average of doses administered per 100 inhabitants per day.
Our World in Data, a statistics website from the University of Oxford, ratifies Cuba as the number one nation in that category with some 294.02 doses, ahead of Chile (239.69), the United Arab Emirates (231.98), China (205) and Brazil (164.25). — NNN-PRENSA LATINA
