Countries Line Up To Buy Cuba’s New Abdala COVID Vaccine

July 13, 2021 (EIRNS)—On July 9, Cuba’s Regulatory Authority for Medications, Equipment, and Medical Devices, or CECMED, granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to the Abdala COVID vaccine, one of five such vaccines being produced on the island. Clinical trials showed that Abdala, which requires three doses, had an efficacy rate of 92.28%. Officials at CECMED reported that the vaccine had gone through very rigorous trials, that the production facility had been visited and inspected, and that data from the trials had been studied meticulously,  Argentina’s business daily El Cronista Comercial reported.

This is the first COVID vaccine to be produced in Ibero-America, already used in Cuba to inoculate volunteers, high-risk groups, and the elderly—over 2 million people so far. With the EUA, the government can now launch its mass vaccination program with the goal to vaccinate 70% of the population by the end of August and 100% by year’s end.

Cuba has one of the world’s most sophisticated, state-of-the-art biotechnology industries, developed out of necessity because of the decades-long economic blockade which prevented the country from obtaining medical supplies, vaccines, diagnostics and treatments. It is instructive that Miami-based Cuban exile groups and other social media promoters of the July 11 protests in Cuba, repeated the line from the New York Times that the vaccines were “unproven” and were probably killing people. With insight, Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales commented to CNN today that attempts to destabilize Cuba are likely connected to its “sin of having produced a vaccine with 92% efficacy, which affected capitalist interests,” i.e., pharmaceutical monopolies.

Notwithstanding the media cartels, many nations are lining up to purchase the Cuban vaccine—Mexico, Argentina, Vietnam, Bolivia, and Venezuela among them—giving Cuba the means to obtain urgently needed revenue, which sanctions and the economic blockade have denied it. Venezuela has already purchased 12 million Abdala doses and is vaccinating its population. And it is seeking to produce it domestically.