Havana, (Samajweekly) Cuba expects to complete it mass vaccination against Covid-19 for all of the country’s 11.2 million residents by August, the official newspaper Granma said.
The most advanced vaccine candidates, Soberana-02 and Abdala, will be used in the mass immunization, although Cuba has three others, Soberana-01 and Soberana Plus, as well as Mambisa, in different phases of clinical trials, Xinhua news agency quoted the Granma report as saying on Monday.
All the vaccines have been produced and developed in Cuba.
President of the state-owned company BioCubaFarma Eduardo Martinez explained that Soberana-02 and Abdala have their own production systems “so as not to compete” and “to be able to manufacture many vaccines in a short period of time”, according to the newspaper.
“We are increasingly reaching industrial stability. We have manufactured batches of vaccines, which passed a rigorous evaluation process, to start the health intervention,” Martinez added.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Health will start on Wednesday a mass vaccination campaign in seven of Havana’s municipalities, which will continue in the second half of May in the western provinces of Pinar del Rio and Matanzas, as well as Santiago de Cuba and the Special Municipality of Isla de la Juventud.
Cuba has so far reported a total of 117,097 confirmed coronavirus cases and 741 deaths.
