44,000 Cubans will receive the first vaccination this month with the most successful of the five candidate vaccines developed in the country.
The outlook is good, according to international experts. Cuba even hopes to export vaccines and to vaccinate foreign tourists.
At the Finlay Institute in Cuba, scientists developed three corona vaccines under the name Soberana, which can be freely translated as “your own boss.” One of these, Soberana 2, is in the final testing phase. The Abdala vaccine, developed at the Cuban Center for Genetic Modification and Biotechnology CIGB, has also entered phase three.
The prospects are good, and this is important not only for the 11 million Cubans who, among other things, because of the lack of tourists, have found themselves in the worst economic crisis since the “Special Period” in the 1990s and with difficulty obtaining primary products such as painkillers.
Allies such as Venezuela and Iran will also have access. Both countries are also conducting tests with Soberana 2.
It may take another three to seven months to complete the investigation. Still, Cuba is making a case for the entire Cuban population to be vaccinated before the end of the year. That will not be an easy task: the previous US President Donald Trump further tightened the sanctions against Cuba, making raw materials difficult to find their way to the island.