The first virtual conference on the management and control of leprosy will begin its sessions today in Havana with the pre-National Conference course on this disease, where lectures will be given by renowned professors in the specialty of dermatology.

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 27 (ACN) Cuban vaccine candidates Soberana 01 and 02, developed by the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV), are advancing their clinical trials at an accelerated pace in view of the global emergency decreed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among the main modifications made to the Cuban protocol for the clinical management of patients with COVID-19 is to treat patients classified as high-risk sufficiently in advance and to do so in a differentiated manner by means of intensive surveillance.

Cuba reported today 786 new SARS-CoV-2 cases, an all-time high for one day since the beginning of the pandemic in the country last March.

The Cuban drug Itolizumab, created by the Center for Molecular Immunology, was recently used as an anti-inflammatory therapy treatment for three COVID-19 positive patients, with encouraging results.

The official account of the Cuban Presidency highlights today on Twitter the favorable progress of the vaccine candidate Abdala, whose results and safety and immunogenicity levels are already proven in the country.

The Cuban ministry of foreign affairs (MINREX by its Spanish acronym) posted today on Twitter that a group of eleven doctors and four laboratorians are already in Barbados to complete the brigade of the Henry Reeve contingent that supports the work of confronting the COVID-19 pandemic in that Caribbean nation.

Cuba reported today 567 new COVID-19 cases—542 of them autochthonous, 25 with a foreign source of infection, 31 infected from unknown sources, and 248 who were asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis— after 15,152 tests in the previous 24 hours.

The Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), in Havana, has the potential to guarantee a greater production of vaccine candidates, fulfill the demand for drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 positive patients and respond to international requests, Oscar Cruz Gutierrez, its deputy director of production, assured.

Official statistics have it that 127 Science, Technology and Innovation Entities (ECTI)—61% of the nationwide total—from 80 research centers, 13 scientific and technological services, 34 development and innovation units and a scientific-technological park are registered in the capital alone.

Cuban scientists go on developing Jusvinza, one of the main drugs in the treatment of COVID-19 in Cuba, with a view to its application to other conditions, Maria del Carmen Dominguez Horta, leader of the project at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), announced.

Based on a Phase I clinical study being carried out at the Institute of Hematology and Immunology in Havana, researchers from the Finlay Vaccine Institute are assessing the safety and immunogenicity of the candidate Soberana 01 in patients convalescing from COVID-19 with low levels of neutralizing antibodies.

Obesity is major risk factor for acquiring, transmitting and suffering serious complications from COVID-19, Doctor of Medical Sciences Jorge Pablo Alfonzo Guerra, a second-degree specialist in Nephrology and Internal Medicine, said in an interview with the Cuban News Agency.

The Cuban capital is facing a complex Covid 19 spread, with numbers on the rise surpassing 200 confirmed cases on Friday, which has led local authorities to call for harder work against the disease.