Cuban Expert Team Researches on Covid Mutations

Havana, Jan 22 (ACN) Cuba has set up a multi-disciplinary expert team to research on genetic variants of the SARS-COV 2 virus, which causes the Covid 19 disease.

Doctor Maria Guadalupe Guzman, who heads the Center of Diagnostic and Reference at the Tropical Medicine Institute in Havana told ACN that the expert team aims to study and identify different mutations of the virus and to foresee possible epidemiological scenarios as well as the development of candidate vaccines.

The multidisciplinary team is made up of specialists from different universities, scientific and biotech centers.

Doctor Guzman informed during a press conference Friday the recent detection in Cuba of the South African variant of the virus, which is already present in 20 nations with an increased number of COVID 19 cases.

Although none of the people who had contact with the patient confirmed with the new virus variant in Cuba was positive to the coronavirus, the doctor insisted in keeping precautious measures because the variant could be present on the island or other mutations could also arrive here.

Cuban scientists with the Havana-based Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center (CIGB) are shielding local candidate vaccines against new variants of the SARS-Cov-2 in order to guarantee effective immunization of the people against the disease.


CIGB’s director of Biomedical Research, Doctor Gerardo Guillen told ACN that there is no evidence that new genetic variants of the virus may affect the protective response of Cuban vaccines, though scientists must keep watching.