Havana. The Cuban vaccine against the coronavirus, Soberana 02, will begin phase 3 trials in March, the Finlay Vaccine Institute confirmed on Twitter, which announced that 42,600 people will participate in the tests.
The director of the Finlay Institute, Vicente Vérez, indicated that in April the production of the first batch of around 100,000 doses will begin, while awaiting the results of phase 3, which will take place in Havana.
The country will produce 100 million doses of Sovereign 02 this year, a figure that can satisfy domestic demand and export, said Vérez, who also assured that, once the biological is approved, all foreigners who arrive on the island and want to get vaccinated will be able to.
“We are not a multinational where financial purpose is the number one reason, our goal is to create more health,” he said.
Dr. José Moya, director of the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization (WHO / PAHO) on the island, declared that he wants “the country to rigorously follow all phases of trials 1, 2 and 3, and that the process be reviewed by the National Regulatory Agency ”.
Once they pass the clinical stages, the WHO could count on the Cuban drug, said Moya, and “become part of the group of vaccines that are offered through the Revolving Fund,” a mechanism that has been able to manage antigens for four decades. and supplies to the countries of the Americas.
Three other projects are developed: Soberana 01, also from Finlay, and Mambisa and Abdala, from the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.
Meanwhile, the vaccine from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford does not seem to protect against mild and moderate cases of the disease caused by the South African variant of the coronavirus, reported the British newspaper Financial Times, citing a study to be published Monday.
“In this small phase 1 and 2 trial, initial data show limited efficacy against moderate disease, mainly due to the South African variant B.1.351,” said an AstraZeneca spokesperson in response to the report. Financial Times.
The Chinese regulatory authorities approved “with conditions” the marketing of a second vaccine produced by the country against the coronavirus, CoronaVac, from the Sinovac laboratory.
Yesterday, the United States applied more than 2 million doses in a single day for the first time. In the recent week an average of 1.43 million has been put, which is close to the 1.5 million promised by Joe Biden, who initially had a goal of one million. There is a total of 40 million doses approximately.
Top health officials warned of the possibility of the Super Bowl becoming a mass-spread event and urged the public not to organize meetings.
The NFL offered to transform the 30 stadiums where the league is played into vaccination centers, when the country registers 462 thousand deaths and 26.9 million cases.
The General Directorate of Health of Portugal described as significant the decrease in deaths in the previous day, as well as the number of patients in intensive care. The 214 deaths in the past 24 hours represent the lowest figure since January 18.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, with 613 thousand 669 deaths and 19 million 410 thousand cases, the interim president of Peru, Francisco Sagasti, will be the first person to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in the Andean country. While Chile inoculated more than 550 thousand people in three days.
Hundreds of Honduran doctors protested against the government for mismanagement of the pandemic, as 79 health professionals have died from Covid in the country.
Doctors complain that the government gave them material of poor quality and insufficient to be able to care for patients, because the money destined for purchases was diverted to private accounts.
One year after his death, thousands of social media users in China paid tribute to ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, the first doctor to alert about the epidemic.
The pandemic registers 105 million 714 thousand 997 infections worldwide, 2 million 307 thousand 92 deaths and 58 million 834 thousand 276 people recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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