Countries such as India, Pakistan, Iran, Vietnam and neighboring Venezuela are already interested in importing the Cuban Soberana-2 vaccine against COVID-19, the Finlay Institute said, although the jab is still in clinical trials.
Cuba’s Finlay Institute is preparing to produce 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccines this year – citing demand from other developing countries as well as nationally.
“We are reorganizing our production capacity because we really have a high demand for the vaccine and we need to prepare,” Vicente Vérez, the institute’s director, told reporters on a laboratory tour on Wednesday.
Vérez said other nations interested in the Soberana 02 vaccine include South American ally Venezuela, Vietnam, Iran, India and Pakistan.
The Finlay Vaccines Institute is developing two vaccine candidates, Sovereign (“Sovereign”) 01 and Sovereign 02. The latter is more advanced and is currently in phase II studies, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Other biotechnology laboratories in Cuba are working on two more vaccines, Abdala and Mambisa.
Several phase III vaccines have been approved for “emergency” use and are administered as part of mass immunization programs, including those developed by Pfizer BioNTech in Germany, Moderna USA and AstraZeneca in the UK.
Cuba, with a population of about 11.5 million, would need only a fraction of the 100 million figure for its domestic needs.
The second stage of Phase II studies of Soberana 02 began this week at a polyclinic – a state medical center – in the capital Havana, with about 900 subjects tested. The previous stage involved about 100 people.
But Vérez added that 150,000 people across the island will be vaccinated in the coming weeks, while studies with Soberana 02 in children will begin next month.
Volunteers did not report any side effects after receiving jab – unlike numerous reports of severe side effects from the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine worldwide. Vérez pointed out that Soberana-2 does not contain a living virus like many other vaccines, but antigenic proteins from dead viral particles.
“Cuba’s vaccine marketing strategy has a combination of humanity and health impact and the need for our system to support vaccine and drug production for the country,” Vérez said.
“We are not a multinational in which profitability is the number one reason,” he added. “We are working the other way around; creating more health and recovery is a consequence; it will never be a priority.”
As many nations compete to produce a coronavirus vaccine and to put an end to the pandemic and national drug regulators acting as guardians, a situation of parallel markets is developing. The western and western aligned states place orders for the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca jabs, while many developing countries, including Venezuela and Argentina, buy the Sputnik-V vaccine from the Gamaleya Institute in Russia or the Sinovac product from the Chinese company Sinopharm.
These markets overlap in places. Brazil imports Sputnik-V and Sinovac, as well as Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The South African Ministry of Health says it is in talks with Gamaleya and Sinopharm, but so far has only placed orders with European manufacturers. Brazil imports vaccines from several countries, although President Jair Bolsonaro criticized a clause in the Pfizer contract, absolving it of responsibility for any harm suffered by patients.
While Sputnik-V and Sinovac are not yet considered by Western regulators, the French newspaper The world reported that political pressure had been put on the European Medicines Agency to accelerate the Pfizer vaccine in the EU. Since the UK approved the easier-to-store AstraZeneca vaccine, in addition to the Pfizer jab, the British National Health Service has inoculated almost four times as many people as Germany and almost 7 times as many as France.
Cuba has recorded 19,122 Covid-19 infections and 180 deaths since the pandemic hit the island last March.