Cuba fast-tracks administration of booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 22 (ACN) The Cuban Ministry of Public Health has decided to speed up the vaccination process with the COVID-19 booster, for which the national biopharmaceutical industry will deliver more than six million doses of the immunogens Abdala, Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus in the coming weeks.

In statements to the press, Dr. Eduardo Martínez Díaz, president of the Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical Industries Business Group (Biocubafarma), said that the purpose is to keep the population protected against the danger that the SARS-COV-2 Omicron variant may pose to the immune response induced by vaccines.

“We had decided to administer the booster since November to those who had received the first immunization six months earlier, but then we sped up the process due to Omicron’s presence and the existing evidence that an additional dose increases protection against infection,” he remarked.

“Before the end of January 2022, the country's biopharmaceutical industry expects to have all the necessary booster doses for the entire Cuban population,” he added. “The Cuban vaccination strategy was based on a first three-dose scheme, something very important, because the third dose secures a mature immune response, both in the antibodies and in the cells.”

According to research, the Cuban vaccines ensure this cellular response, which reveals that they can be highly effective to tackle the new variant. Since Omicron began to spread, Cuba designed and is already synthesizing specific antigens of this variant, which has already been reported in more than 80 countries and declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be of concern due to its high transmissibility.

“Although Omicron is less lethal than Delta, it is more transmissible, so it does constitute a risk for vulnerable people. Therefore, the concern is justified,” Martínez Díaz concluded.