Phase III clinical trial of Abdala vaccine candidate began in Santiago de Cuba

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba, Mar 23 (ACN) With the application of the immunogen to 250 university students, phase III of the clinical trial of CIGB-66 (Abdala), one of the five nationally produced anti-COVID-19 vaccine candidates, began on Monday in Santiago de Cuba.

Yanet Veranes, Municipal Health Director, said that, in a complex economic and sanitary period, Abdala marks a triumph in the battle against the infectious disease caused by the SARS-Cov-2 virus, as it ratifies the will of the Cuban State, government and scientists to improve the quality of life of the population.

The doctor said that the decision to initiate this defining stage with the students of the universities of Medical Sciences and Oriente (UO) is in line with their leading role in the fight against the pandemic from different areas: community research, quarantine zones, isolation centers and other assigned tasks.

According to Josefina Prósper, a Phase III volunteer, Abdala represents hope for thousands of people inside and outside the island, who, confident in the quality of the biotechnological and pharmaceutical industry and the solidarity vocation of Cuba, aspire to put an end to the devastating disease.

The also president of the Federation of University Students in Medical Sciences commented on the enthusiasm and responsibility with which the future health professionals assumed the participation in the clinical trial of CIGB-66, aware of their contribution to the wellbeing of their fellow countrymen and other inhabitants of the planet once the efficacy of the candidate has been demonstrated.

After the reports on the immunogenicity, reactogenicity and safety of Abdala - evaluated in the previous stages - biologist Armando Contreras signed up as a possible volunteer and today received the first of the three doses to be administered on April 5 and 12.

Contreras expressed his pleasure to contribute to this fight for life and the revalidation that the nation's scientific and sanitary potential are among the most important in the world.

The third cycle of the CIGB-66 clinical trial, promoted by the Center for Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), includes 48 thousand subjects from the head towns of the provinces of Granma (6 thousand), Guantánamo (12 thousand) and Santiago de Cuba (30 thousand).

The volunteers will go to the 46 vaccinatories set up in some 20 clinical sites, among the three territories, from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm and it is expected that 500 people will be inoculated per day in each of them.

So far, Abdala and Soberana 02, from the Finlay Vaccine Institute being tested in Havana, are the only anti-COVID-19 vaccine candidates in Phase III in Latin America.

Together with these, Cuba consolidates Mambisa (CIGB-669) and Soberanas 01 and Plus to place itself in the small number of countries seeking its own vaccines to immunize its population against SARS-Cov-2.