Cuba’s long history of vaccination campaigns

Since 1962, Cuba has been the only country in the world where free-of-charge vaccination campaigns are launched every year. The first one, in that year, was the anti-polio vaccine for children. Today, it’s the anti-COVID-19 vaccines developed by Cuban scientists.

In the late 19th century, poliomyelitis was detected for the first time among the inhabitants of a community of Americans in Isla de Pinos, currently Isla de la Juventud, apparently introduced by U.S. immigrants. It was there where the first outbreak took place in 1906, whereas the first epidemic was recorded in the former province of Las Villas in 1909.

In 1962, after the triumph of the Revolution, annual vaccination campaigns against poliomyelitis began with the immunization of every child from one month of age, and the island was declared polio-free in 1963. This practice has continued until the present times.

Since then, no deaths from the disease have been recorded, although 10 non-lethal cases were reported between 1963 and 1989. In 1994, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) certified the eradication of this scourge in Cuba.
However, the WHO notes that polio continues to be endemic in Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, regardless of the huge efforts to eliminate it throughout the world.

This time, despite the complex epidemiological situation facing Cuba—and the world—the 60th national bivalent oral polio vaccination campaign took place, with more than 400,000 children vaccinated between February and March to guarantee their protection against poliomyelitis, a disease that causes acute flaccid paralysis and leaves a significant motor impairment in infants, cognitive sequelae and even death.

One of the great achievements of the National Public Health System in Cuba has been the prevention of infectious diseases through the free administration of the vaccines included in the National Immunization Program (PNI), which has made it possible to prevent such scourges and, consequently, to avoid the death of many children.

In addition to polio, six other vaccine-preventable diseases, including rubella, measles and mumps, have been eliminated in Cuba.

Given the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases, and after two pediatric trials, one of them with Abdala—the first Latin American vaccine against the virus, designed by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB)—a second potential Cuban solution made by the Finlay Vaccine Institute, Soberana 02, is currently being tested in a trial called Soberana-Pediatría.

Thus Cuba consolidates its long history of vaccination campaigns for the benefit of its people’s health.