Dr. Vicente Verez, director of Cuba’s leading scientific institution, the Finlay Vaccine Institute, has announced that the Institute intends to produce 100 million doses of the Soberana-2 COVID vaccine, one of four vaccines currently being developed in that island nation, to vaccinate its population of 11.2 million people by the end of this year. Cuba has also indicated that the vaccines it produces will be made available to Ibero-American and other interested nations. Dr. Verez told Xinhua that the marketing of the vaccine “is a combination of humanity and [having] an impact on world health. We’re not a multinational where the financial goal is the top priority. Our goal is to create greater health.” (Emphasis added.)
The Soberana-2 vaccine will enter Phase-3 clinical trials in March, and once its use is authorized, it will be the first such vaccine developed and produced in Ibero-America. The expectation is that it will very quickly become available for general use by the end of the first half of this year. Iran’s Pasteur Institute has also just signed an agreement with Finlay and will participate in the Phase-3 trials. Iran, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and Venezuela have also said they’re interested in purchasing the Cuban vaccine.
This is an extraordinary development, considering that Cuba is still subject to the 1962 economic blockade imposed by the U.S., which makes purchase of medical supplies from the U.S. very difficult—despite U.S. claims to the contrary. Former Secretary of State, the psychopath Mike Pompeo, had also imposed more brutal economic sanctions on Cuba, boasting publicly that he intended to “asphyxiate” the Cuban economy. As Dr. Verez explained to AFP, under these conditions, a poor country like Cuba couldn’t afford to purchase vaccines. Beginning in the 1980s, the government began to develop what is today a top-notch biotechnology industry which enjoys international prestige.
